Gender Lessons - Sense Publishers

Transcription

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Patriarchy, Sextyping & Schools
Scott Richardson
Millersville University, Millersville, USA
Public schools in early America were designed to ensure the reproduction of Eurocentric
social values. It could be argued that little has changed. Gender Lessons takes an indepth look at how schools institutionalize gender—how kids are taught the rules and
expectations of performing masculinity and femininity. This work provides extensive
examples of how elementary, middle, and high schools: sextype; defend and preserve
patriarchy; weave gendered expectations in all things school related; promote inequity;
and limit their students’ potential by explicitly and implicitly teaching that they must
fit into only one of two boxes…“girl” or “boy.” Richardson argues that schools—a
powerful and wide reaching publicly funded mechanism—should be engaged in social
(re)imagination that disbands the antiquated girl/boy and feminine/masculine binary
so that kids might have a chance at being themselves. This book is sure to provoke
conversation in courses and professional communities interested in education, gender
studies, social work, sociology, counseling and guidance.
Gender Lessons
Gender Lessons
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“This book is unique in that it includes data from elementary, middle, and high schools
from both students’ and teachers’ perspectives. These examples are familiar to anyone
working in K-12 schools, but his analysis offers a new lens for many that can expose
the frustrating and often heartbreaking nature of these taken-for-granted cultural
norms.” –Elizabeth J. Meyer, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Education at California
Polytechnic State University and author of Gender and Sexual Diversity in Schools
Scott Richardson, Ph.D. is a curriculum theorist and researcher in the areas of gender,
sexuality and democratic, alternative, and international education. He is the author
of eleMENtary School: (Hyper)Masculinity in a Feminized Context.
GEND 4
Scott Richardson
SensePublishers
ISBN 978-94-6300-029-1
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Gender Lessons
Scott Richardson
“In the 1970s, feminists fought to reform sexist school curricula and challenged
taken-for-granted tracking of boys and girls. Forty years later, drawing from personal
experiences and insightful research in schools, Scott Richardson shows us that the
job is far from finished. Informal interactions and stubborn sexist beliefs about
gender difference still press girls and boys in primary, middle and high schools into
different—and highly constraining—gender boxes. Anyone who cares about taking
the next steps toward gender equality in schools will find in Gender Lessons a useful
and hopeful map to a better future for our kids.” –Michael A. Messner, Ph.D., Professor
of Sociology and Gender Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and author
of Some Men: Feminist Allies and the Movement to End Violence Against Women
Cover art: Emily A. Pellini
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Gender Lessons
Teaching Gender
Volume 4
Series Editor
Patricia Leavy
USA
Scope
Teaching Gender publishes monographs, anthologies and reference books
that deal centrally with gender and/or sexuality. The books are intended to be
used in undergraduate and graduate classes across the disciplines. The series
aims to promote social justice with an emphasis on feminist, multicultural
and critical perspectives.
Please email queries to the series editor at [email protected]
International Editorial Board
Tony E. Adams, Northeastern Illinois University, USA
Paula Banerjee, University of Calcutta, India
Nitza Berkovitch, Ben Gurion University, Israel
Robin Boylorn, University of Alabama, USA
Máiréad Dunne, University of Sussex, UK
Mary Holmes, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Laurel Richardson, Ohio State University, Emerita, USA
Sophie Tamas, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Gender Lessons
Scott Richardson
Millersville University, Millersville, USA
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 978-94-6300-029-1 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-94-6300-030-7 (hardback)
ISBN: 978-94-6300-031-4 (e-book)
Published by: Sense Publishers,
P.O. Box 21858,
3001 AW Rotterdam,
The Netherlands
https://www.sensepublishers.com/
Cover art: Emily A. Pellini
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved © 2015 Sense Publishers
No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written
permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material
supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed
on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
PRAISE FOR GENDER LESSONS: PATRIARCHY,
SEXTYPING & SCHOOLS
“Read how kids and their teachers conspire to create the illusion
that gender is uniform. In ‘pledging the patriarchy’ even the
victors are victimized by the ‘sextyping’ schools accommodate
and sometimes espouse. Read about teachers who sometimes
teach gender lessons to their students a little too ‘up close and
personal.’ No muckraker, Richardson reports what he learned
from his resounding research, not always telling us what we’re
supposed to learn but allowing the facts themselves to teach. But if
you haven’t learned your lesson by chapter 6, you’ll grasp it then.
(Ah, the French, once again). Even if Richardson didn’t have kids
– he has two, Mali and Maria – you know he’d make a great Dad,
because he is a great teacher: ‘My hope is that we might fully
recognize children as complex individuals—that we go beyond
any biological assignment, and resist the pressure to stereotype
(sextype) how boys and girls are “supposed to act”.’ Scott
Richardson understands. Read for yourself.” William F. Pinar,
Ph.D., Professor and Canada Research Chair, University of
British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
“In the 1970s, feminists fought to reform sexist school curricula
and challenged taken-for-granted tracking of boys and girls. Forty
years later, drawing from personal experiences and insightful
research in schools, Scott Richardson shows us that the job is far
from finished. Informal interactions and stubborn sexist beliefs
about gender difference still press girls and boys in primary, middle
and high schools into different—and highly constraining—gender
boxes. Teachers, parents, and anyone who cares about taking the
next steps toward gender equality in schools will find in Gender
Lessons a useful and hopeful map to a better future for our kids.”
Michael A. Messner, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology and
Gender Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and
author of Some Men: Feminist Allies and the Movement to End
Violence Against Women
“Dr. Richardson has done an excellent job providing an accessible
and scholarly analysis of the ways in which gender is taught and
reproduced in school settings. His style of combining personal
narratives with data from his team’s detailed observations in
schools give readers an engaging entry point to think carefully
about what he calls sextyping. He provides many examples that
describe and problematize everyday practices in average K-12
schools and classrooms. These examples are familiar to anyone
working in K-12 schools, but his analysis offers a new lens for
many that can expose the frustrating and often heartbreaking
nature of these taken-for-granted cultural norms. This book is
unique in that it includes data from elementary, middle, and high
schools from both students’ and teachers’ perspectives. His writing
is provocative, engaging, and contributes to an important body of
research that can help parents, educators, and policy makers think
differently about what effective and inclusive schools look like.”
Elizabeth J. Meyer, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Education at
California Polytechnic State University and author of Gender
and Sexual Diversity in Schools
For Yara
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Forewordxi
Acknowledgementsxiii
To an Educational System Attempting to Prepackage
the Human Condition
Field Note
xv
xvii
Introductionxix
Chapter 1: Dear Mrs. Baldwin, I’m Concerned
1
Gender Socialization
My Students
My Kids
5
11
16
Chapter 2: Getting into It
35
Methods37
Monroe Valley School District, U.S.A.
43
Chapter 3: Josie Fisk Elementary School: An Anchoring
53
School Climate
56
Second Grade with Mary Fox
75
Fourth Grade with Jessie Malloy
81
Fifth Grade with Allen Reif
93
“Me! Me! Pick Me!”
100
Thoughts104
Chapter 4: J. R. Randolph Middle School: The Proving Ground 111
School Climate
Seventh Grade Mathematics with Josh Hayes
Eighth Grade Language Arts with Taylor Ames
Special Education with Jen Spiro
Pledging the Patriarchy
ix
114
132
138
144
151
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 5: Central High School: Playing Life
161
School Climate
Coffee (Turned Mimosas) with Sages
167
169
Chapter 6: Deinstitutionalization, Now!
181
Alternative and International Curricular Models
...Yes, Now!
184
191
Appendix A
195
Appendix B
197
Appendix C
203
Bibliography207
x
FOREWORD
In August before I started junior high school, I bought supplies I had
not needed in elementary school. For my notebook I knew I had to
get a pencil case. I liked the large one with bright colors rather than
the smaller white one. “Those are the ones the girls buy,” the store
manager told my mother. So I put it back on the shelf. I also learned in
the first week of junior high that the popular boys carried their books
under one arm. I thought it made more sense to use both arms to carry
the stack in front of my body. My arm hurt when I lugged four large
textbooks on one side. But only girls carried their books in front, my
best friend told me. That settled it—I lived with sore arms rather than
risk social suicide.
Most of us learn early on what is and is not expected of boys
and girls. The lessons come from many teachers—parents, friends,
television stars, favorite musicians, the church…and from our school
teachers. What we learn in classrooms usually reinforces what we
already picked up outside the school when we were very young.
So the teachers you will meet in this book did not cause what Scott
Richardson calls “sextyping.” When a first grade teacher told the
boys to wear cowboy hats and the girls to put on tiaras for a concert,
she did what her community expected. Men and women differ, and
the sooner our kids know it, the better. This isn’t discrimination; it’s
reality. “Sounds like you live in a different world,” one teacher told
Scott when he questioned that view of life.
But if the teachers in this book did not cause sextyping, they
certainly did not challenge it…or even talk about it. They accepted
and often reinforced what we academics say is “constructed”—a view
that gender is a performance. It is not innate, genetic, or inborn. Very
few teachers wanted to be what the great sociologist David Riesman
once called a “countervailing force”—the daring idea that educators
should occasionally question what others take for granted. In fact, they
celebrated the labeling and stereotyping that would, in their opinion,
prepare the young to be happy heterosexual adults.
xi
FOREWORD
Several teachers agreed with Scott’s view that separate is never
equal, but they were a small group who met together, voluntarily,
each morning. Even when Scott joined them, they only talked about
sextyping after he raised the issue, and the very best conversation took
place outside school, fueled by mimosas. There are few spaces in most
schools for discussion of issues that aren’t linked to the agenda of
higher test scores. The vignettes in this book that make us cringe can
happen so often because the classroom doors are closed.
But Scott got in. It wasn’t easy—he had to pretend he was studying
academic success when in fact he knew from the start that he wanted to
extend the extraordinary work of his first book, EleMENtary School.
It wasn’t funded —Scott is a countervailing force because he is an
ethnographer—a close observer who spends months in schools—in an
age when scholarship without statistics is out of fashion. He stands
apart by virtue of how he acts as well as what he believes.
An astute observer of early 19th century America, Alexis
deTocqueville, said that “the majority lives in the perpetual practice
of self-applause, and there are certain truths which the Americans can
only learn from strangers or from experience.” In this book we have
the experience of a savvy stranger in a school district that is all too
American.
Robert L. Hampel
School of Education, University of Delaware
Author, Paul Diederich and the Progressive American High School
(2014)
xii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Ethnographic work of this kind requires years in the field, constant
processing of ideas with anyone who would listen, and endless lonely
hours, blurry eyed, behind the glow of a computer. For me, it also
required squatting in bars, coffee shops and anywhere I could find an
electrical outlet. This work survived multiple computer crashes and
my losing the only copy of the manuscript on a bus in Reykjavík.
Luckily, I had a supportive team of people who kept me going.
My dedicated and wicked smart research assistants are amazing.
Thank you to Khoan Ly, Sabrina Hensel, Samantha Lang, Brandon
Leinbach, Kortney Gipe, and Jenna Bisbing.
I was gifted with a talented core of readers who provided invaluable
advice. I greatly owe Yara Graupera, Elizabeth Soslau, Angela Wilson
Kost, and Robert L. Hampel for giving me critical feedback from start
to finish. Thanks also to Edwin Minguela, Mel Cleveland, Cajetan
Berger, Edward Woestman, Savannah Rosensteel, Brent Schrader,
Jessica Heindel, Dagmar Snowadzky, Dana Morrison Simone, Lindsay
Eisenhut, Maria Cristina Bucur, Robert Jones, and Khristina Schultz.
I work with great colleagues in the Educational Foundations
Department at Millersville University, to whom I owe significant
thanks. In particular, Thomas Neuville for engaging in any half-baked
idea at any time, Ojoma Edeh Herr for providing me with new writing
spaces, Tiffany Wright for allowing me to force impromptu readings
on her, and John Ward for always playing devil’s advocate.
Thank you Patricia Leavy, a gifted editor with vision, generosity,
and insight who has given my work a great home in the Teaching
Gender Series.
Most of all, I am thankful to my family—all of you—for listening,
reading, editing, challenging and questioning. It is you who provide
me with deep inspiration.
…Mali and Maria, thanks for letting me be your dad.
xiii
TO AN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM ATTEMPTING
TO PREPACKAGE THE HUMAN CONDITION
When I was in the second grade,
the collars on my dresses were fastened like nooses around necks
to fit the mold of a woman
and to protect the boys from distractions.
Boys will be boys, so the girls need to cover up and shut up.
I wondered what rules I could depend on when I couldn’t breathe
in this packaging you trapped me in,
yet your tune remains unchanged:
My gender is a lifeline carved into my hand
that will determine what I can and can’t do
and if I am not a white boy basking in the hyper-masculine,
I cannot be equal.
My option has been preselected
predetermined by what’s “down there”
(because god forbid we learn about our own organs and hormones
and how to safely engage them without a trial by pregnancy).
In history, you reduce us to footnotes
and contextualize our existence to that of a man.
I want to be complete on my own
but you say that makes me the sick one
for wanting to leave this box.
In math and science, you blame my vagina if I don’t know the answer
when you should probably check your lesson plan
because while you keep insisting that there are only two options,
I know boys who are sensitive and demure
xv
TO AN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM ATTEMPTING TO PREPACKAGE
and girls who are calculating and adventurous
and kids who don’t fit into your pronouns.
Your prescription is conformity,
but if students are committing suicide
because they couldn’t fit,
Then these boxes are nothing more than coffins.
We are not the sick ones.
An education system with a fatality rate
is the one that needs a cure.
It starts in the classroom.
It starts with opening your eyes and realizing
you have more than just “boys” and “girls.”
you have essays and poems
movement, energy, opinions
dirt and charcoal
paintings breaking out of their frames
touchdowns and scores of
symphonic melodies crafted by laughter.
You have students.
You have us.
—Nicole Weerbrouck
xvi
FIELD NOTE
xvii
INTRODUCTION
This book is about how schools sextype and institutionalize gender. I
explore how schools, particularly Monroe Valley, a suburban school
district, explicitly and implicitly teach girls to perform femininity and
boys to perform masculinity.
I am not the first person to write about how schools establish specific
cultural roles and expectations for kids. There are many important books
in this field. I am simply providing another example so that we may be
opened to more conversations. This research employs ethnographic/
narrative methodologies; makes sense of data by pulling from theories
grounded in curriculum inquiry, sociology, philosophy, and gender
studies; and creates narratives by weaving together conversations,
observations, and interviews. In some cases, particularly when I use
student voices, I employ composite non-fiction2 so that I can offer more
anonymity. Blended research methodology such as this may make it
difficult for some readers to “trust” the researcher because the tone is
less “research technical.”3 Traditional academics argue that work like
this may not be taken seriously. To a large extent, I am not concerned
about traditionalists, or about how traditional academic paradigms
attempt to define and confine (essentially creating a monopoly) how
inquiry needs to happen. As a writer, I chose this blended path, and work
hard to create a narrative tone because I view it as important to connect
with a broader audience (teachers, parents, students, academics, and
so on) and engage them in their own sense-making processes.
This book is chock-full of examples detailing how gender is taught
in schools. I am afraid that so many examples might make reading
this work become tedious. I hear voices in my head, “Alright,
alright, Scott, we get it.” But the dozens of examples I provide here
represent only a fraction of what I observed. I considered scaling back
how many examples I should provide, but resisted because 1) the
institutionalization of gender is a conversation rarely held, 2) readers
have a better chance at connecting with certain stories and make sense
of their own (or their students’/kids’ school experiences), 3) few works
xix
INTRODUCTION
have catalogued daily school happenings based in sextyping, and 4)
gender is so incredibly pervasive…it is everywhere, in everything.
My hope is that we might fully recognize children as complex
individuals—that we go beyond any biological assignment, and resist
the pressure to stereotype (sextype) how boys and girls are “supposed
to act.” It is also my hope to really recognize that “racism, sexism, and
elitism all have concrete institutional locations,”4 and that it is our duty
to radically reimagine these spaces.
NOTES
Some examples: C. J. Pascoe, Dude You’re a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in
High School (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007); Lois Weis,
ed., Class, Race, & Gender in American Education (New York, NY: SUNY
Press, 1988); Judith Kleinfeld & Suzanne Yerian, eds., Gender Tales: Tensions
in the Schools (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1995); Emma Renold, Girls,
Boys and Junior Sexualities: Exploring Children’s Gender and Sexual Relations
in the Primary School (New York, NY: Routledge, 2005); Peggy Orenstein,
Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self-Esteem, and the Confidence Gap (New York,
NY: Anchor Books, 1994); Barrie Thorne, Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School
(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press; 1993); Sarah A. Chase, Perfectly
Prep: Gender Extremes at a New England Prep School (New York, NY: Oxford
University Press; 2008).
2
Theodore R. Sizer, Horace’s Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High
School (Boston, MA: Mariner Books; 1984).
3
Also, the methods section of this book (Chapter 2, “Getting Into It”) details how
I gleaned information—how I came to know what I knew. This allows me to
speak on behalf of participants in the study (e.g., how a student felt in a specific
circumstance, or how a teacher interprets school policy, and so on) throughout the
rest of the work without having to qualify every instance along the way. I find this
technique useful and important for many reasons, but most importantly so that I
do not continue to disrupt the powerful narrative of participants’ experiences. For
a good example of a work that is similar in nature, see: Tracey Kidder, Among
School (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1989).
4
Patricia Hill Collins, “Toward a New Vision: Race, Class, and Gender as
Categories of Analysis and Connection,” in Privilege: A Reader, eds. Michael
Kimmel and Abby Ferber (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2010), 237.
1
CHAPTER 1
DEAR MRS. BALDWIN, I’M CONCERNED
The word on the street, or at least in academic circles, is that by
now it is well understood that gender is a social construct. Babies
are born sexed with genitalia and often, before they open their eyes,
they are swaddled in blue or pink. Bam! Gendered. “Baby banners
announcing, ‘It’s a boy!’ or ‘It’s a girl!’ should read, ‘I’m ascribing
this baby boyhood’ or ‘I’m socially constructing this baby as a girl.’1
Family members, teachers, communities, media, and more all work
to continue to impose gender on individuals from birth through
adulthood, and even beyond death.
“Grandpa was such a gentleman. He never raised a hand to those
kids unless one of his boys was disrespecting a woman.”
“She was so sweet. Jane was a great neighbor. Even into her eighties
you could tell she used to turn a lot of heads. And she was always so
put together…never left the house without her high heels.”
A coffee shop near my house is a hot spot for stay at home moms.
Toting their small children to brunch in bucket seats, strollers, and
swaddles, they connect with one another chatting about money, school,
husbands, parenting, sex, vacations, among other things. They fawn
over each other’s kids. One day I was watching a group of four moms,
likely in their lower thirties, sipping lattes and going through the usual
topics.
“Bill’s applying for that new job at the courthouse…”
“Lexi hasn’t pooped in a day, I’m going to call the pediatrician or
I’m going to stuff her full of applesauce and prunes…”
“I just don’t like the beach as much anymore, I think we’ll try a ski
resort this year…”
Interrupting, a friend of theirs, smiling from ear to ear, walked
through the door. She was carrying her newborn, and it was evident
that the rest of the moms have not yet met this kid.
“Oh my goodness! He’s so handsome!” one mom exclaimed.
1
Chapter 1
Another threw her arms around her friend, “You are so lucky to have
such a cute little guy! He’s going to be a lady-killer!”
“Oh, look at those eyes…you’re flirting with me, aren’t you?”
I thought about joining the conversation just to see what would
happen, “You are one sexy baby…give me a call later.” Surely, I
would have been told off. But is it not absurd to sexualize an infant?
To immediately bathe a two week-old in heteronormativity? And what
if a group of dads did this around a newborn daughter?
“I bet she is going to date lots of men when she’s a teenager.”
“She is so hot!”
“Your daughter is giving me eyes…”
Girls too are gendered at birth, but differently. Boys are expected to
hit the ground running, looking for the next girl to conquer. Girls are
expected to be adorable little princesses, with their sexuality guarded
by their fathers. From, “Oh, you’re daddy’s little girl…” to purity
rings, daddy-daughter dances, the omnipresent threat of a boyfriend
having to deal with dad if he took things too far (in my teenage years,
a father once told me, “Don’t make me have a talk with you behind the
shed.”) to fathers giving their daughters away at weddings.
Gender is continually constructed and imposed on each of us.
Westernized heteronormative scripts are practically handed to us on
day one. And the people in our lives (acting as producers, directors,
and audience members) will continue to make sure we stick to the
script: no improvising allowed; be your character, play your gendered
performance. These scripts and performances do serve a perceived
important purpose. They allow us to make quick sense of who one is/
should be and what we can expect of them depending if they are a man
or woman. It is an unfair act of generalization that cues us to interact
with each other in particular ways. But it does something else too. It
helps to maintain what bell hooks calls:
“white supremacist capitalist patriarchy”—“the interlocking
systems of domination that define our reality” (as quoted in
Jhally, 1997). “White,” “supremacist,” and “capitalist” are
adjectives modifying “patriarchy,” the noun, which she defines
as, “a political-social system that insists that males are inherently
2
Dear Mrs. Baldwin, I’m Concerned
dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak,
especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate
and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through
various forms of psychological terrorism and violence” (hooks,
2004, p. 18). This is strong wording. It may be difficult to “see”
psychological terrorism and violence in most of our everyday
lives because patriarchy does not always (need to) explicitly
employ it. What this means to me is that psychological terrorism
and violence is often implicitly present, and ready to be unleashed
if white men begin to lose their dominant status in our society.2
White supremacist capitalist patriarchy is both a long held American
tradition (like baseball and apple pie) and enemy number one (that is,
if we desire progress). Our gendering process does nothing but uphold
and seriously defend this system of deep inequality. Related and just as
important to recognize, I believe, is my claim that by teaching discreet
performances of femininity and masculinity, and by not reimagining
new genders and rendering them available to youth, we are limiting
our children’s capabilities to be fully human. It is simple: if we were to
teach all of our children how to perform, enact, and own the great range
of human traits—regardless of whether they are/used to be considered
“masculine” and “feminine”—their potential to become more whole,
well-rounded, and relatable would be exponentially greater. They
would grow to better understand each other as individuals and produce
a society that might be ready to take on, or starve, the white supremacist
capitalist patriarchy in older generations. Our kids deserve the chance
to be fully human, to become self-determined and self-actualized
without the imposing boundaries of gendered performances. They
deserve to challenge white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. But we
have to teach them differently, now.
Though this book describes the institutionalization of gender, it is
also a call for deinstitutionalization. There is no need for children to
learn gender in a binary (male/female) and static manner. Society should
be more nuanced by now, and demand that our schools recognize and
actively teach about a flexible and ever evolving spectrum of gender.
Enough, “boys and girls, line up,” already. I know this is a tall order.
3
Chapter 1
It would mean that teachers, administrators and others who work in
schools must be open to, and receive, an education of their own. Many
adults undoubtedly want what is best for children, but fail to see that by
categorizing and enforcing “girl” and “boy” expectations, they work
to limit kids to certain gendered performances.3 These performances,
then, become difficult to break and are expected of us over a lifetime.
So, deinstitutionalizing gender for kids at an early age is important.
This does seem like a utopic dream, but I do not see any reasonable
excuse for leaving deinstitutionalization unexplored, especially since
we already have a wide reaching publicly funded mechanism in place
that could do this work: schools.
My philosophical positioning has been influenced by many factors:
my experiences growing up as a boy and man, my work as a male
elementary school teacher in a perceived “feminized” context, and by
making general observations about gender relations in this country.4 The
status of women, particularly women of color, in this country is quite
unimaginable. I am equally concerned about this “remasculinization”
movement5 that is being wielded, as if men are really suffering from the
same economic and social disparities as women. Women are steadily,
for the first time in American history, graduating at higher rates than
men from all levels of education, from high school, bachelors, masters,
and doctoral programs.6 However, women are still paid $0.77 to every
$1.00 a man makes for the same job.7 Obviously, we do not live in a
meritocracy in the U.S. Actual achievement is of little concern if it is
by women. Also, there is the on-going epidemic of sexual harassment
and assault that victimizes women mostly, but hurts men too. I could
go on, and on, but the three extremely important phenomena that I
theorize about and inspire me the most for this work are:
1.the relatively ignored socialization process that happens in and
outside of our schools;
2.my undergraduate students, many of them fresh out of high school,
who have learned—and perform well—stereotypical gendered
behaviors that interfere with their education;
3.the deep worry I have for my own children in this gendered world.
4
GENDER SOCIALIZATION
In graduate school, when I first became interested in gender, I sought
the help of a sociologist. She was well known for her work, and I
needed to conceptualize “masculinity” and “femininity.” We met at
her office, and I sat nervously twitching in the uncomfortable wooden
chair that was for visiting students. I only knew her by reputation, but
I definitely did not want to seem dumb. I was still in the “imposter
phase,” wondering if I was good enough to be a graduate student and
academic.
“So, what is it that you want my help with?”
I do not remember exactly what I said, but it was word soup; a
jumble of things.
“I’m not really sure I understand. What exactly are you researching?”
After serving up more word soup, finally, I asked, “Has ‘masculinity’
and ‘femininity’ been defined? And if so, how?”
She smiled and pointed to a collection of rap CDs on her table. “Are
those masculine or feminine?”
“I feel like this is a trick.”
“It’s not a trick, just tell me. When you look at those, do you think
they are masculine or feminine?”
“Masculine.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I think about rap music, and most of the artists are
men. I guess I know more men who listen to rap.”
“OK, that’s good. It’s related to your reason. But just visually, tell
me, what do you see?”
“Ummm…the labels are high contrast, lots of sharp lines, bold black
and white shapes.”
“Ok, good. How about that plant over there?” She pointed toward
her window.
“Feminine.”
“Why?”
“It has tiny flowers, it’s green…I think of nurturing.”
She smiled at me and said, “Do you need a definition of ‘masculine’
and ‘feminine’ after all?”
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We parted ways with her saying, “Don’t worry about it, everyone
knows what ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ is, and sometimes they give
words to it, but most times, we just know.
I was startled that this person, a social scientist, who lives in the
world of academia, when given the opportunity to exhaustively define
and ascribe meaning to constructs was just so nonchalant about it.
In the following months, I thought about it more, and did my
own scouring of academic literature but remained without any
solid definition. It was only after reading R. W. Connell’s work on
masculinity that I finally “gave in.” Gender was not to be defined
outside of the likes of silly internet blogs, YouTube videos (“Shit
White Girls Say”) and “young women’s magazine” polls (“Quiz! Are
You a Real Lady?”).
Connell’s model asserts that there are a variety of masculinities,
which makes sense only in hierarchical and contested relations
with one another. R. W. Connell argues that men enact and
embody different configurations of masculinity depending on
their positions within a social hierarchy of power. Hegemonic
masculinity, the type of gender practice that, in a given space and
time, supports gender inequality, is at the top of this hierarchy.
Complicit masculinity, describes men who benefit from hegemonic
masculinity but do not enact it; subordinated masculinity describes
men who are oppressed by definitions of hegemonic masculinity,
primarily gay men; marginalized masculinity describes men who
may be positioned powerfully in terms of gender but not in terms
of class or race.8
Connell is careful to point out that masculinity is also flexible and
“inherently relational” with “femininity.” “‘Masculinity’ does not
exist except in contrast and relation with ‘femininity’.”9 “Masculinity,”
or femininity, “to the extent the term can be briefly defined at all,
is simultaneously a place in gender relations, the practices through
which men and women engage that place in gender, and the effects of
these practices in bodily experience, personality and culture.”10
So, yes, there is no one definition of “masculinity” or “femininity.”
This leaves us with just “knowing,” or “sensing,” by tapping into our
cultural understandings of these terms, from moment to moment,
6
situation to situation. While these constructs of “masculinity” and
“femininity” are difficult to put into exact words, “as a society we
have little trouble in recognizing it.”11 And we certainly have little
trouble creating it. Practically everything around us has some sort
of gendered meaning—from concrete materials like CDs and plants
to abstract concepts like care and problem solving. Genres, subject
matter, and interests also get gendered. Since forever women have
been considered deficient in science, technology, engineering, and
math (the “STEM” fields). Of course, there are no good reasons for the
absence of women in these fields, and only now are we really taking
this problem seriously.
We map on gendered meanings to everything, and we have
expectations of how one should interact or engage with our world,
accordingly. Even if we try to cancel out, or ignore, gendered meanings
others ascribe, or we are conscious to not create performances that
reify stereotypical “girl” and “boy” culture, we still end up feeling
the pressure to conform/perform for two primary reasons. The first is
social/economic, and the other is environmental.
Let’s pretend that a stereotypical hypermasculine man
uncharacteristically begins to perform femininity—wears a little bit
of make-up or is openly emotional—or a stereotypical hyperfeminine
woman uncharacteristically begins to perform masculinity—develops
an interest in basketball or buys a Harley—their friends and family
might express confusion. Perhaps it would be so confusing that their
friends and family might not know how to interact or continue in their
relationships in a comfortable manner. Employers might also find these
transitions confusing and downright unwelcomed. This might have
direct impact on their ability to support their employee’s work. There
are many examples that could be made, but here is an easy one: In the
restaurant business (unless they are progressive or openly affirming)
it would be hard to imagine that an androgynous person (despite how
competent they might be) would be rewarded a job waiting on tables
over a sweet, smiling, passive and pretty woman or funny nice guy.
In sum, those who break gender rules, or are “border crossers,”12 will
suffer social and economic consequences for simply being who they
are. On a personal note, I often wonder what might happen if I wore
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Chapter 1
a skirt to class. How would my college students react? How about my
colleagues? What about the dean?! I have not been brave enough, yet,
because things could drastically change for me. I am a newer faculty
member, and would like a long successful career—and this simple act
might have deep professional (economic) and social repercussions.
Perhaps I would be denied tenure and promotion. I should point out
that I have no real inclination to wear a skirt, but that the option is
not even really available keeps me from sincerely considering it. Who
knows, maybe it is something I might like and identify with. How
awful is it that the perceptions of others, and the threat of unnecessary
consequences, keep us in check, restrict our sense of autonomy, and
disallows our potential selves?
We have very little control over most of our environment. Sure, we
can turn off the television, avoid the internet, draw the curtains, and turn
out the lights, but that will likely lead to a lonely and uninformed life.
Living out there and connected, however, means we are bombarded
by lessons that try to convince us that the heteronormative gendered
binary is completely normal and essential. These lessons are tethered
to capitalism. For example:
Preteen girls can be pretty if they convince their parents to purchase
certain clothes, make-up, and so on.
Little boys can be brave and just all-around awesome if their parents
buy them play swords and shields.
Men can be sexy and irresistible with the right kind of shaving
cream.
Women can be beautiful and apparently super flexible in yoga pants,
if they just buy the right tampon.
Whether it is the purchase of products, entertainment, education,
or something else, there is practically always a gendered/sexualized
message that accompanies the specifications of what is being sold. After
being so indoctrinated, it is almost absurd to imagine a commercial
that would be straightforward and told the truth:
“The use of this make-up will result in a fight between you and your
parents, and possibly your school. But these clothes are good, because
you need to not be naked in public.”
8
“These play swords and shields will affirm that secret you’ve kept
to yourself—yes, in-deed your son is an asshole. You’ll wish just once
he would listen to your plea, ‘No play fighting in the house.’”
“Shaving cream can be used in conjunction with a razor to shave
any hair you desire. Go for it.”
“This tampon will absorb your menstrual bleeding while you are
doing any human activity, including yoga if that’s your thing.”
Capitalism, marketing specifically, sends strong cultural messages
about how masculinity and femininity should look and how we, the
consumers of products and gender, should embody it. Marketing
ploys and other phenomena are providing environmental stimuli and
reinforcing a binary gendered system teaching that we should fit in it
on one side or the other. Consider this (short!) list:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
pink and purple versus all other colors
pink and blue aisles in toy stores
“boy” and “girl” names
the phrase “you guys” to categorize all groups of people—old lady
knitting clubs, Girl Scouts, mixed gender middle-agers, etc.—
devalues others who might identify as women/feminine (working to
make them “invisible,”) or gendered in other ways. “This seemingly
innocent phrase may be operating like a computer virus, worming its
way into our memory files and erasing our sense of why we worry
about sexism in language to begin with.”13
differently cut clothing (e.g., low rise jeans, long cut swim
trunks, swimsuits for girls/women—99% of which would be
“inappropriate” cuts for any other place, like schools that worry—
perhaps unnecessarily?—about butt cheeks, etc.)
“Mother’s Day” and “Father’s Day”
“boy” and “girl” bathrooms (I use bathrooms for very specific
biologically driven reasons…I wonder, what else happens in
women’s bathrooms that they must be separated?)
TV channels (e.g., Lifetime for Women, Spike TV)
“chick flicks”
boy bands
hair accessories
select spas or massage parlors (including seedy ones)
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Chapter 1
• religious practices (think: different seating areas in the synagogue,
women cannot become Catholic priests, roles and responsibilities
differ according to denomination)
• greeting cards
• strip clubs (most cater to men, some do not allow female patrons,
and male strip clubs are few and far between)
• man caves
• locker rooms (that are social/non-private, but are driven by gender)
• names of businesses (“Five Guys,” “Pep Boys,” “Kirchner & Sons
Refrigeration,” “Hooters,” and “Dirty Dicks”)
• representation in certain careers
• representations of “masculine” and “feminine” media—of every
kind imaginable
• mud flaps with Playboy symbols or those tacky side profiles of
curvaceous women sitting ummm…sexy I suppose?
• athletics (male and female teams, some exclusively gendered like
football…some sports, like cheerleading, serve to sexualize women)
• recreational events (e.g., “girls night out” and “ladies night” at the
bar)
• overheard or random jokes about sex
• general beliefs held by people that men and women have different
capabilities (that men are more technologically capable, while
women are more capable at caring).
• supposed humor like, the old man to the fourteen year old, “So, do
you have a girlfriend yet?”
• men’s body wash
• the criminalization of women’s nipples14
• street and work harassment
• “mancations”
• Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts
• terms like, “human kind”
• phrases like, “man up”
• “selfie” culture and sexting
• men approaching women in social situations asking, “Do you have
a boyfriend?”
• manscaping and Brazilian bikini waxes
10
No wonder we do not fully recognize the pressure we have been
under to perform gender, or how we personally uphold patriarchy by
being heedlessly complicit. To a certain degree we are all Truman
Burbank in the movie, The Truman Show.15 We recognize that
something might not be exactly right. We experience some discontent.
But, until suspicion and discontent turns personal, there is seemingly
nothing much to complain about—it is just life. It is just how life is
supposed to be.
My grandmother is sweet, thoughtful, and is always learning. Books
and documentaries are a natural part of her daily diet. On occasion,
because she is curious, she asks, “What are you up to?” With this
question anxiety rushes over me and I remind myself that despite her
inquisitive disposition, she also comes from a different era. I respond
as if I’m a fifteen year old who just stole a six-pack of beer, a car,
and got a tattoo of my girlfriend’s name on my bicep. I tiptoe around
an answer, “You know, nothing much.” If she presses, I submit some
real answers, but with the understanding that they will be met with
criticism. I tell her I am writing about gender, which is almost always
true. I will go into a few specific details, but then try to change the
subject. More times than not, however, she does not let it go. “I don’t
understand what there’s to write about,” she would say. Or, “That’s
just the way the world is. Men and women are different. They are
meant to do different things.” I have tried in the past to talk about how
we are socialized to be masculine and feminine and when we assume
these roles, inequality ensues. On occasion, she agrees, “That’s true,
men never want to help out around the house.” But more times than
not, she thinks I am making a big deal out of nothing. She does not
understand gender as multiple, flexible, constructed, or imposed. It is
simple reality. My grandma is not alone.
MY STUDENTS
An important debate has endured the test of time in America: Should
schools model themselves after society or should society model itself
after schools? Meaning, should schools “get students ready” to “fit”
the current conditions (economic, social, religious, etc.) of society?
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Chapter 1
Or should society look to schools to reimagine the future—for new
and better ways that society should function. Undoubtedly, regardless
of which side you are on, we can agree that practically, both happen.
Sometimes schools push change and bring innovation to society, and
other times schools spit out “products” who are expected to play
certain roles. In my observation, however, when it comes to gender,
high schoolers are graduating with few to no skills that allow them
to critically think about gender, their individual performances, or
society’s impact (like the above list) on gender construction. Take, for
example, the undergraduates that I teach.
I teach students who want to be elementary school teachers. Recently,
I had my most challenging group of students of all-time.
As a teacher, I try to practice democratic pedagogical approaches.
I want to build a learning community where students take care
of one another. For several years now, I have been practicing a
model of “open syllabus education” (OSE)—developed with a few
innovative colleagues—that invites students to develop their courses
with my guidance. The first day of class is usually very exciting.
The great majority of students have never participated in K-12 or
post-secondary courses that actively enlist their help, or empower
them to “own” their education. Therefore, during our first class
session, students usually experience a range of confusion, worry, and
enlightenment. I love to watch them grapple with my sixteen page
document of provocations (my invitation to a democratic class). I
ask questions like:
• You may ask, “How can we (students) participate in designing a
curriculum well if we are not familiar with the academic matter of
the class? Is it not primarily, if not solely, the role of the teacher,
who is considered to be very knowledgeable in this academic field
and knows better what should be learned?”
• What would be the ideal practice for your learning and professional
development: having grades or not having grades and if having
grades, what kind of grades and how should grading be organized
for you to make it highly beneficial and minimally (or not) harmful?
• How are we going to make organizational, curricular, instructional,
and conflict-resolution decisions and reflect on their consequences
12
in our class? Should we try to do “democratic decision making” in
our class? What does that mean?
• Should our community transcend the classroom? Meaning, do we
become involved in each other beyond class? What does this look
like?
Students are quick to see that none of these questions have any one
answer. They discuss, argue, push back, wonder, and try to make sense
of this new structure. Students do not have to accept my invitation to an
OSE class; they can simply ask for a regular (closed) syllabus that has
their entire semester planned for them. However, my classes always
accept this democratic approach and report, “it’s a unique opportunity
to try to learn differently.”
This one class, however, used it as a unique opportunity to bully one
another.
“I like this idea,” said Samantha, a student who I met just minutes
before. She sat in the back, proper, and forthright. “But, it’s not going
to work.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because this class is all girls.”
Confused, I pressed on, “So, what difference does that make?”
“Girls are bitches,” she said.
I needed a moment to recover, but Michelle, sitting across the room
agreed, “Girls can’t be trusted with getting along and making decisions
with each other. She’s right. We’re all bitches.”
The class, shook their heads and sharpened their eyes, and produced
a chorus of, “yup, that’s true,” and “I agree.”
“Whoa! Hold on a second!” I responded. I hoped they were kidding,
but observing their serious demeanor, I was moved to spring to their
defense.
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Are you telling me that it is
impossible for girls to get along? For them to be in a productive
learning community together? To take care of one another?”
“It’s not impossible, but it’s not likely…it’s just the way we are,”
said Samantha, now leaning back and talking with a sly smile.
I spent the next hour trying to understand why they believed that
girls were inherently “bitches.” Needless to say, they did not have any
13
Chapter 1
good reasons or evidence. They continued, like my grandma, “Girls
are just that way.”
It was the oddest first class I ever had, and the semester went
downhill from there. This group of thirty women, nineteen to twentythree years in age, made life miserable for one another. They used
the democratic classroom to make bad decisions for one another.
They would listen intently to what their peers expressed they needed,
and then vote for the opposite. The class formed factions—the cool
and pretty; the nerdy and serious; the emotional; the conservative
religious; and so on. Students scrambled to sit with their factions prior
to every class session. If one came late to class, and could not find a
seat next to their “friends,” horror would overwhelm them. How dare
they sit with another group of people who are moderately different
than themselves?!
Worst of all, they engaged in deeply aggressive behaviors. Some
were quite explicit—for example, they took to real-time cyber-bullying
during class. They foolishly followed me on Twitter and then used this
platform to trash one another.
“Ppl are so retarded. Like anyone gives a fuck about your opinion.
#shutupbitch”
“Every time she opens her mouth I wanna slap her.”
“Your presentation @studentname was the shit, ignore those haters.
They wish they could be us.”
“I can’t even. This class has so many sluts.”
Implicitly aggressive behaviors, microaggressions, were just as bad,
but more difficult for me to detect. When certain students in opposing
factions spoke in class, eye rolling, deep sighs, turning away, and
rebuttals that dug at their belief systems, ensued. A look, ever-so-slight
could, enrage another student for the rest of class.
Other professors who had these students in their classes were
experiencing the same problem. So, we staged an intervention. We
showed the film Bully16 and afterward, talked about their behaviors.
We told them, “enough is enough!” Students sobbed and some even
confessed that they were acting terribly.
We believed this would reign them in. And for a week or so, it did.
But by the end of the semester, they were all back in it—fighting it out,
14
being terrible people. As one final attempt to help them make sense of
their actions, I invited a good colleague and friend of mine, Elizabeth,
and the associate provost at my university, Jeff, to my last class session
of the semester. I asked them to sit up in the front of the classroom and
directed my students to be quiet. I told my students that they were not
allowed to ask questions or interrupt at all, and said:
Teaching is tough. And sometimes you have really difficult
situations. In the future, if you ever get a job teaching—which
at this point, I kinda hope you don’t—you should seek out good
colleagues that can help give you feedback. That you can lean-on.
That you trust will be honest. So, before you, I have invited two
really great people to come in to talk to me. I’m going to tell them
about my trouble teaching you, and they’ll give me feedback. The
point of this exercise is for you to 1) listen to how professionals
can help each other improve their practice/what good mentorship
looks like and 2) to inform you, again, about your unprofessional
behavior. This semester has been hell for me. I cannot believe that
people who want to be teachers, who want to enter relationships
of care in a classroom, would take to bullying. Let’s begin…
Then, I turned to Elizabeth and Jeff and we held an hour long
conversation about my students’ behaviors, my possible failures as
their instructor, and what we desired in teachers.
As you can imagine, my students were stunned. They sat in disbelief
that I would be so honest. That my colleagues were involved, that
others were talking about them, made it even more “real.” When the
class was over, Elizabeth and Jeff reported that it was one of the most
unique experiences they had in a college classroom. That held true for
me too. I thought that for sure, my students would reflect a little bit and
try to make sense of everything. I should not have been so optimistic.
The next day, several came to my office fretting over whether I actually
meant that they “shouldn’t be teachers.” We talked a bit, and right
before they left, they frankly told me, “But Dr. Richardson, you knew
this was going to happen. It’s your fault too. We told you that it wasn’t
going to work because girls are bitches.”
These girls were addicted to being mean. They were addicted to the
idea of what it meant to be a girl. They saw no way out of it. It was clear
15
Chapter 1
that their high schools, and perhaps none of their schooling before that,
challenged what it meant to be a girl—or better yet, a person. What a
gift it would have been if they were taught and learned that they did
not have to be this way. I wondered, what was the institutionalization
process like for these students?
MY KIDS
I have two children, Mali and Maria. At the time of this writing they
are nine and eight. They, like most siblings, are very different from one
another, but share some core qualities. They are kind, wild, smart, silly,
generous, eccentric, self-determined, hilarious, and witty. They are
crazy about animals (particularly dogs) and have deeply adventurous
spirits. As they have gotten older, they have begun to share interests in
horseback riding, rock wall climbing, zip lining, exploring nature, and
traveling to new places. They are naturally curious and desire to learn
about the world around them.
They are different in some obvious ways: Mali is an old soul and
deeply sensitive (like me), whereas Maria is a space cadet and “sour
patch kid” (like my partner, Yara)—sweet one moment, sour the next.
Mali’s mind is that of a sociologist, while Maria’s is of a philosopher.
They look vastly different, too. Mali has always been tall and strong.
She has deep dark brown eyes and hair. She rarely cares about what
she looks like, and dresses for complete comfort. Maria has blue
eyes, blonde hair and is on the shorter side. Occasionally she cares
what she looks like, but is content to wear the same outfit for a
week (or as long as we let her get away with it). Yara and I often
reflect how challenging it has been at times to parent kids who are so
similar and dissimilar to us, but ultimately feel blessed and amazed
at how they are also their own unique selves—truly perfect in every
single way.
Mali has been known to spend hours at night, lying in bed, thinking
about the social interactions she encountered, examining adult
conversations overheard, and wondering…just wondering…about
everything she observed throughout the day. Mali’s mind is almost
always switched “on,” and is constantly at work trying to make sense
of all she has experienced. Most of all, she attempts to understand why
16
people feel the way they do. Then, in her own nine year old way, she
advocates for their needs. Mali cannot help but to care.
Once, we took the kids to a pig catching contest at a local fair—not
something we typically do—and instead of running after the terrified
greased up hog like the dozens of other children, she ran behind the
pack and helped those who had fallen in the mud during the chase.
These kids were strangers. Kids she knows are lucky to have a such
a solid friend in her. She will forever stand by their side, and stick up
for them.
Mali is also concerned about “right” and “wrong.” She is interested
in social justice, and believes that her contributions can help create
change. She has been known to organize yard sales that benefit people
experiencing poverty and animal shelters. This usually consisted
of her setting up a table in our front yard with old toys, things she
found around the house, and little pieces of artwork that she produced.
Around election time, she pays attention to political advertisements,
and asks whom we are going to vote for, and why. Most recently, she
has become interested in political protests.
Mali is a kid who never wants to disappoint. In fact, Yara and I often
wish she were just a little naughty, selfish, or would tune out the adult
world; that is, we desire her to be a carefree kid. Last year she—the kid
who never does anything wrong—worried for two full months that she
might have been “accidently bad,” possibly resulting in Santa Claus to
skip over our house…or even worse, just visiting her sister.
Mali is wildly creative and has big ideas. By the looks of it, she
has been managing an artist cooperative out of her bedroom. It is an
explosion of yarn, paints, scrap material she’s pulled from our trash,
odd knick knacks, books, glue, modeling clay, and so on. She has twine
strung between her windows and the ceiling fan so she could hang bed
sheets and make hideaway spaces to work in. She has random sketches
and paintings taped to her wall, pieces she has knitted strewn across
the floor, and dozens of journals and sketch pads filled with her ideas
all over her desk, bed, and elsewhere. Dare we attempt to help her
“clean up,” she accuses us of trying to get rid of her stuff. Her world is
a creative one, and she feels secure being immersed in art.
Besides art, she has a wide spectrum of interests which include
reading, writing, theatre, anything science related, Teenage Mutant
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Chapter 1
Ninja Turtles, outer space, the sea, theatre, climbing trees, wrestling,
super corny jokes, spending time with her family (during the school
week she pines for the weekend) and anything that has to do with
our dog, Mia, our “schweenie” – go ahead, look it up. Mia is an odd
looking dog with an underbite whose favorite activity is to sit close
and breathe in your face. Besides this quirk, she is a sweet dog and an
old soul, just like Mali. If Mali is feeling “mixed up,” frustrated, or
like she just needs a friend, we’ll find her snuggling with Mia on her
bed, or lying together under the warmth of the sun in our backyard.
They get one another.
Droves of kids love Mali because she is so kind. And while Mali has
a few close friends, she actually prefers to be around adults most of
the time. Recently, I took a group of thirteen undergraduate students,
and Mali, to Northern Ireland on study abroad. We motored around
the country, shoved into a medium sized van. We were always on the
move, staying in new locations, and kept an exhausting schedule. She
was constantly, at all times, with my students—which for college kids
on a trip overseas, could have been annoying. Instead, she and my
students stayed up late, night after night, playing games like spoons,
Catchphrase, and bullshit—which Mali refused to say because she
deemed it “bad” so she called, “bullship!” They also built forts with
blankets in the shared living spaces of the houses we rented, and baked
cookies and Rice Krispie treats so they had late night snacks after the
pub. She bunked with students in their rooms and giggled with them
until the early morning hours. She and my students explored beaches,
castles, schools, and cities together. I was so deeply moved that my
students treated her so well, and I thanked them for this at the end
of the trip. They, however, were confused and told me, “Well, she’s
awesome!” “We love her!” and “She’s like one of us!” She had made
thirteen genuine friends. It is extraordinary that a nine year old would
make friends with college students, but it is not all that extraordinary
for Mali. People of all ages think the world of her.
Mali is self-determined. She knows who she is and does not care
about what other nine year olds deem “normal.” She’s happy to be her.
She voices how lucky she is to have the life she has. How remarkable.
When I tuck her in bed at night, I will often take a few moments to
18
snuggle. I burrow my head into her shoulder and tell her all the great
things she is and tell her I love her. Often she will respond, “I know, I
rock…I’m awesome.” I hope she knows this always.
As for Maria, our space cadet/sour patch kid, she epitomizes
randomness. Maria is, for the most part, predictably unpredictable. She
lives in her head for large swaths of the day, and only engages with
people and her environment when it interests her. She can lose herself
in any context and under any condition. This means that we have to
continually keep watch of her. What is interesting is that when she
wants to engage, she is wickedly perceptive. For example, we spent
this past summer in Paris—a city that was new to us—so navigating
the busy streets of the city with Maria proved quite stressful. Wherever
we walked Maria would slip her hand out of ours so she could chase
pigeons, run up flights of stairs, point and announce that certain statues
were “naked,” and pause to look at random things—a leaf, a jagged
brick in the wall of a building, a dog in a store window, or just the
sunlight trickling through trees. She was rarely where we wanted her
to be: holding a hand, next to our side. However, on occasions in which
we got ourselves lost, Maria would tune-in and lead us back to our
apartment. This also happened once in the Louvre. Maria and I spent a
few hours in the museum and I became completely turned around. She
took my hand and marched me twenty or so minutes through hallways,
up and down stairwells, winding through exhibits, and exactly to the
exit in which I was hoping for, announcing, “See Daddy. It’s just right
there.”
Her ability to tune-out provides her with resilience. Anything she
does not care about simply does not exist in her world. Recently, I
took her to an academic conference and she sat through seven hours of
boring talks with only a Kindle and pad of paper. She did not complain
once. Instead, she read, drew, and spun herself in circles looking at the
ceiling.
Maria rarely minds being tuned-out. However, every now and again
it does result in her missing out on some things—for example, ideas
shared during important family conversations, what day of the week
it is (she wakes up most days by saying, “Is today the weekend?”),
and simply observing what’s going on (like that time she mistook a
19
Chapter 1
large bat flying around her bedroom as a moth). She will probably
call bandanas, “damn-banas,” and easels, “weasels,” for the rest of her
life because every time Yara and I correct her she simply looks right
through us, then says, “Whatever, I don’t care, sometimes you say
wrong things…I can say it however I want.”
From early on, Maria has had a special affinity for animals. When
she was just a toddler, she played “guinea pig” for hours every day.
She used her crib as a crate, and begged us to come pet, and feed her
through the rails. She eventually became a “puppy” and this lasted for
several years of her life. There were many family dinners in which
Maria simply barked responses, licked her paws, and ate off her plate
like a dog. If we misinterpreted the meanings behind her barks, she
became angry, clenched her teeth, and would give us a growl. It was
only when we got our second dog, Zoe, a Chihuahua/Jack Russell
mix, did Maria feel that she could graduate to “puppy trainer.” She’s
often found dragging Zoe around the house, sternly giving orders, or
crushing her in her arms snuggled on a chair. Maria loves roughly.
Though Maria also has deep interests in reading, drawing, towers
and tall buildings, geography, history, and goofing around, dogs
(particularly Zoe) dominate her mind. She has told us that she will
either live in San Francisco or with us when she gets older and will be
the owner/manager of a “dog hotel.” For now, however, she spends a lot
of time setting up imaginary spaces—most of them homemade using
cardboard and other scrap materials—for dozens of plastic miniature
dogs. She creates dog yoga studios, housing communities, airports,
restaurants, new foreign lands, and so on. The dogs are situated within
these sophisticated pretend worlds with jobs, families, social lives,
and interests.
Maria takes everything a little personally. For instance, whenever
someone burps, she feels it was directed at her—and so she burps in
retaliation. How she has come to thinking and doing this, we will never
know. In large groups, she will often accuse Yara and I of not listening
to her, which I think might be a typical second kid complaint, but it
occasionally results in her claiming, “You don’t love me.” When it is
just her and an adult, however, she gets super trippy and asks weird
questions like, “Is today tomorrow?” “If we get one more dog would it
20
be more than other people?” “Can I have a dollar? Because, hey, I have
two eyes and I can see it.” Once I overheard her ask Yara, “Mommy,
would you rather have a normal husband, or a husband with a human
body and a Shar Pei head?”
Maria loves to put on a show, to make people laugh, particularly
her big sister. She is bold with her jokes, and if you are lucky enough
to meet her—you could be the butt of one. She often makes fun of
doctors, wait staff, and other strangers she does not know. She likes
teasing her family too. To play a joke on us, she secretly convinced
her grandmother to wrap up a toilet plunger and give it to her as a
Christmas gift.
Maria is incredibly loving toward her friends and her family, but
she never really wants to be obvious about it. When I drop her off at
school, I yell out, “I love you,” and she responds, “I love you, but not
more than I love Zoe.” When I tuck her in bed at night, I begin to say
sweet things and attempt to snuggle for a bit, but she pushes me away,
stiff-armed, and says, “Ok, I know, you love me, I’m special, blah,
blah, blah. Can you get out now?” and “Good night, jerk.” Blissful.
I love Mali and Maria for who they are. And Yara and I have worked
hard to not dictate who they must be. We want them to develop their
own interests, explore life, and express themselves in ways that make
sense to them. Of course, we offer guidance and security, but we love
learning who they are outside of us. We understand Mali and Maria as
brilliant, complex, real, and uncompromised beings. And perhaps, it
is our collective societal responsibility to try to understand people, all
people, in these ways. It is how I want everyone to understand Mali
and Maria. I think they deserve it.
Tragically, though, when Mali and Maria go to school they become
simplified. Teachers, and others at the school, make assumptions and
quickly ascribe them to being “like” others—most notably, other girls.
Not only does this violate Mali and Maria’s sense of individuality, it
violates the other girls too. And the boys for that matter, because they
too become primarily recognized as something other than what it is
girls are.
Of course, this kind of simplification might be perceived “normal”
because this is what is done in the “real world.” And it is true—I do
21
Chapter 1
understand that the vast majority of people in our society “makes sense”
by generalizing, categorizing, and placing people in boxes. Maybe
people simplify because it is what they can do most immediately. Yes,
maybe it is about efficiency—I am trying to convince myself here.
But, always? And is this fair? Should we not try differently? Aren’t
you…well, you?
Sure, your race, gender, sexual orientation, the job you hold, car
you drive, type of food you eat, and everything and anything about
you provides some pieces to the puzzle about who you are, but should
it not be up to you as to how those puzzle pieces are shaped? And
what the whole puzzle looks like when pieces lock into place? And
should we not honor each piece as it is important to itself, but also to
the whole? That one piece of the puzzle (one identifier) should not
overshadow or distract us from the whole (from who you are)? I guess
I am wondering, should your identity be how you perceive and define
yourself, not how others (simply) see you?
Though we still do it, perhaps more secretly, it is at least publicly
recognized taboo to generalize and stereotype by race, ethnic
background, disability, religion, and other areas of difference. But
every day I encounter vivid moments of gender differentiation on
display. Recently I walked by a restaurant and noticed a sign in the
window, attempting to be funny, that read, “Caution! Blondes at
Work!” I often overhear people saying things like, “Boys will be boys,”
“Behind every good man there’s a woman,” and “Women, you can’t
live with them, you can’t live without them.” And people generally
agree, “Men aren’t sensitive” and “Women are ‘catty’ in groups.” Why
is this acceptable? Imagine this:
“Caution! Blacks at Work!”
“Christians will be Christians.”
“Behind every good disabled person there’s a non-disabled
person.”
“Hispanics, you can’t live with them, you can’t live without
them.”
“Jews aren’t sensitive.”
“Tall people are catty in groups.”
22
These sentiments, if shared aloud, would be recognized as
discriminatory or flat out crazy. We would not accept the “logic”
behind these statements. We would probably even challenge them! I
know I would walk into a restaurant and complain if they hung a sign
that was racist, xenophobic, or bashed religion.
But in our society and in our schools we make assumptions, create
generalizations, uphold stereotypes, design experiences, and hold
different expectations about how girls and boys, women and men, just
“are” and should be. I am calling this act of gender discrimination
facilitated by stereotyping, “sextyping.”
Sextyping
I believe in the revitalization, redefinition, and stylization of the term
“sextyping.” There have been several instances when researchers
employed the term “sex-typing” (note the hyphen).17 However, this
term was never clearly established and became loosely understood as
both an assumption making process as well as an adherence to certain
gendered performances—much like “gender typing” (note the space).
Gender typing has been defined as a process by which children develop
gender identity by acquiring “the motives, values, and patterns of
behavior that their culture considers appropriate for members of their
biological sex.”18 Sextyping, as I mean it, is not something acquired, but
rather something that is done to someone else. Sextyping is the act of
stereotyping what an individual’s preferences, likes/dislikes, interests,
abilities, and so on, are according to how the individual is (assumed)
sexed within the traditional male/female binary. I propose “sextyping”
because the words “sexist” and “sexism” conjures up the kind of
defensiveness that is mostly unhelpful. Responses to “you’re being
sexist” commonly result in anger, frustration, or shallow deflections
that the accuser must be some sort of crazy, unrealistic hippie or
feminist. And “stereotyping” simply lacks punch. “Stereotyping”
must also be strung along with several other words—e.g., “you’re
stereotyping what color balloon that boy might want.” Sextyping gets
to the point.
23
Chapter 1
In my opinion, people sextype more frequently and openly
than participate in any other form of discrimination. We especially
sextype children. I argue that sextyping is made possible in part by
patrolling the borders19 of what we collectively know as “femininity”
and “masculinity.” If children, especially boys, violate these borders,
adults become unnerved, even actively concerned. Some adults worry
about how border crossing children might grow up. Children have a
difficult time with border crossers as well, but only as much as they
have learned to be concerned. Often on the playground one can hear
boys ridiculing other boys by calling them “girls” (the worst insult for
a boy) for getting upset, asking for help, or by engaging in a so-called
feminine activity. And girls patrol the borders in the same way—by
ridiculing other girls who dress “too boy,” play mostly with boys, and
so on. Boys and girls will blatantly tell the opposite sex, “You can’t
like…because you’re a…” I am not blaming children here for their
sextyping—I am blaming adults! Adults have socialized our youth to
understand gender as binary and to patrol borders, to sextype. Adults
have taught children to be “boy” and “girl” before “kid” or “human”
and that it is part of their responsibility as part of their sex/gender
to ensure conformity. There is a moment of leniency when girls are
allowed to be “tomboys.” In fact, many parents and teachers find girls
performing masculinity “cute” as long as it does not persist deep into
adolescence. As I see it, these performances are accepted because
they, “pay homage to patriarchy.” Boys, however, are rarely praised
for acting feminine because it is a “violation of patriarchy.”20 Yes, it
is all about honoring and defending patriarchy. I once heard Ruby
Bridges say, “Racism is a grown-up disease and we must stop using
our children to spread it.”21 I loved this, partly because I think you
can substitute “racism” with many things and it still works—“elitism,”
“xenophobia,” “homophobia,” “hate,” and yes, “sextyping.”
I do not agree with adults who sextype others, particularly children.
However, I understand that when they were children their families,
neighborhoods, media, and schools sextyped them. Additionally,
I understand that since gender is predominantly performed without
devoting safe space to deconstruct it in our daily adult lives, 22 then the
tradition of sextyping simply carries on. It is what feels and appears
24
natural. And “what appears ‘natural’ acquires the status of being
fixed.”23 However, I expect more from schools. Schools, I believe,
should be places where they disrupt the fixed, the status quo, and (re)
imagine and grow a society that is better than what generations before
us worked to reproduce or maintain. That is, schools should be a site
of new ideas, social reorganization, and social mobility—not social
reproduction.
Schools, however, have a lot of work to do. Looking at my kids’ brief
educational history there are several eyebrow raising moments:
Blocks for Boys; Dolls for Girls
At the end of almost every day of kindergarten, I walked into Maria’s
classroom to find “free time.” During this time boys played (almost
exclusively) with boys, and girls with girls. Boys played with blocks,
cars, and puzzles while girls played dress-up, with dolls, and quiet
board games. Of course, at times, there were exceptions, but this was
the general scene. Maria mostly played by herself because what she
really wanted to do did not fit the culture of the room. She sensed it.
I doubt she was told she could not do one thing or another, but at the
same time I am sure it was not made apparent that she could be her.
In an environment like school—one that is controlled, contrived, and
imposes adult authority—kids need active permission to take risks,
to be as they desire. Otherwise, they end up performing a version of
what they perceive is “correct.” There was very little/no effort on the
teacher’s part to encourage or insist that kids must take turns playing
with everything available to them.
Buzz Lightyear Pencil Box Fiasco
When Mali and her classmates first began experimenting with prewriting the teacher decided to buy all of the students pencil boxes to
stay organized. This was a nice gesture as she bought these with her
own money. However, one day while I was in her classroom I noticed
that Mali was given a pink puffy snail pencil box while many of the
other students had Buzz Lightyear boxes. Then I noticed it was only
25
Chapter 1
the boys with Buzz Lightyear boxes. Mali had for at least two years
of her life obsessed about outer space, so, of course, she liked Buzz
Lightyear.
I asked Mali why she did not have one of these pencil boxes. She
said, “Because the teacher said they were for the boys.”
I responded, “Well, did you ask for one?”
“No, because Ms. Markle said they were for the boys.”
“Oh. Did you want a Buzz Lightyear pencil box?”
“Yes. But daddy, they were only for the boys.”
“Want me to help you ask if you can have one?”
“Um…,” she said nervously, “Okay, but you have to talk.”
So the next day, I could not find the teacher when I dropped Mali
off, but I left a note on her desk. It was a nice note explaining that
perhaps she did not know (and of course, she did) but Mali loved space
and was bummed about not getting a Buzz Lightyear pencil box. I
asked, “Could she have one?”
I saw the teacher at the end of the day and she apologized by saying,
in front of Mali, that she knows “Mali likes boy stuff, so she’ll do
better by including her in boy things.”
I responded, “I think you have it wrong…there isn’t boy stuff, boy
things or girl stuff, and girls things, there’s just stuff and things! How
is being an astronaut/space explorer male or female? It’s just cool.”
The teacher gave me a blank stare and apologized again.
Over the next several weeks Mali would inform me when the teacher
made an effort of letting her know she can do boy things. I imagined her
announcing to the class, “Let Mali play with the blocks…remember,
she likes to play with boy toys too.”
I wondered, how might this damage Mali?
Patriotic Princesses
Near the end of her first grade year Mali asked me, “Daddy, are you
going to go to my patriotic concert?”
“Sure!”
“I don’t want to be in the concert though.”
“Why?”
26
“Well…the girls have to wear tiaras.”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t know. Mrs. Baldwin just said girls have to wear tiaras and
boys have to wear cowboy hats.”
“Oh…well…what do you want to wear?”
“Cowboy hat. I wanted to wear the one I got when we went to
Texas.”
“Want me to ask Mrs. Baldwin?”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“Just because…I don’t want you to…It’s just the way it is.”
It was evident to me that Mali, at the ripe age of just-turned seven,
figured out that adults dictated the rules of gender and that children
should not challenge this position of authority. Just a few years earlier,
during the Buzz Lightyear pencil box fiasco, she was less comfortable
with teachers imposing strict gender roles.
Despite Mali’s plea, I discussed this issue with my partner and we
decided to secretly email the teacher something like:
Dear Angela,
Hi! Hope you had a restful weekend. I’m emailing today with
something that came up…Remember, gender, sexuality and
schooling is what I’m always thinking about and I’m a geek…
so don’t take this personally! J Mali told us about the patriotic
concert and that for this performance the girls are expected to wear
tiaras and the boys to wear cowboy hats. She REALLY wants to
wear a cowboy hat! (We were just in San Antonio and she bought
one!) We told her that maybe she should ask you about it, but she
was terrified at that suggestion! I think for two reasons…1) she
thought since you already assigned roles it would be a “violation”
of your authority and 2) if she were the only girl to switch, there
might be some peer jeering. So…she doesn’t want anything to
be done now—and that’s fine with us too. I just wanted to let
you know of her feelings. And for future events with other kids,
maybe you can offer (and encourage student) choice? Or pick
items that aren’t so polar opposite? Or even better you could just
27
Chapter 1
have all students wear the same thing (tiaras one year, cowboy
hats the next)!
Thanks! See you at the concert!
Scott
Mrs. Baldwin was a perfectly nice person. She strove to be the
penultimate professional—and in my experience, worked hard to do
the little things “right”. Of the dozen or so emails I had sent her prior
to this one she answered them immediately. This time, however, it took
her three days to issue a response. And her email carried a different
tone—concise, formal, and defensive:
Dear Dr. Richardson,
I understand your concern and am willing to allow Mali to have
a cowboy hat.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me or
my principal (copied on this email).
As always, I appreciate your communication.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Baldwin
Obviously, Mrs. Baldwin problematized me and my email. It is also
completely possible that she never really fully thought about how
the decisions she makes in school provide cultural meanings (in this
case gender). Or if she has thought about it that she believes it is
completely appropriate for the girls to learn how to be the kind of girls
she understands to be correct, and boys to learn how to be the kind of
boys she understands to be correct. Regardless, my simple provocation
made me the issue not gender, or Mali’s desires.
Daddy & Daughter Sweetheart Dance
Around Valentine’s Day, my children came home with a “Daddy &
Daughter Sweetheart Dance” flyer. It announced that all elementary
aged girls, for $25, could bring a date—their dad, or another male
over the age of 15—to a special “night of love.” I thought about going,
just to see what it was all about, but I backed out. Really, I could
28
not bring myself to subjecting one of my daughters to an event so
steeped in heterosexualized grooming. The “daddy-daughter dance”
has long been ritualized at weddings, which compliments the father
“giving the daughter away”—to be owned and/or deflowered—and
this elementary school’s effort was an early (perhaps subconscious)
attempt at introducing girls to being their “dad’s.” Masked in sweetness,
I found the line between “cute” and “romantic” to be a blurred one at
best. Then, of course, was the problem that it did not allow boys to the
dance. Nor did it allow girls the option to bring anyone female. (Sorry
kids, the “Two Moms-or-Two Dads-or-Single Mom-or-Parentless-orOtherwise & Kid Sweetheart Dance” has yet been invented or deemed
important).
Mardi Gras Parade in the 2nd Grade Hallway
Edgewater Elementary proudly celebrates a diverse collection of
American holidays. This includes, “Fat Tuesday.” This past Fat
Tuesday, I waited for Mali and Maria on the sidewalk moments before
dismissal. When the bell rang a flood of kids exited the building.
Maria smiled and walked proudly toward me, showing off her newly
acquired Mardi Gras beads. She looped her thumbs under the beads,
lifted them up toward me and said, “Look Daddy! I got beads from the
parade!”
I asked, “What parade?”
“The Mardi Gras parade!”
“Oh…hmmm…ummm…you were in a parade? That’s how you got
those beads?”
“Yup. Lots of older kids were on the side and we walked down the
hall. We had to yell, ‘Hey Mister, throw me some beads!’ Then they
would throw us beads.”
Of course, we know how beads are acquired during Mardi Gras
in New Orleans. The teaching of, “Hey Mister…” is particularly
disturbing. This is another example of grooming, particularly
female students, for performing successfully in a highly sexualized,
heteronormative American culture. Just yuck.24
I could go on…but you get the idea, right?
29
Chapter 1
Though I found these events troubling, they went on with no
concern from other parents, teachers, or administrators. In fact, when
I made small talk to the typical drop-off/pick-up parent crowd, I
asked, “Wasn’t it weird how…?” I consistently received blank stares
or a troubling, “What do you mean? I thought it was cute.” There is
something to say here about the way people interpret and narrativize
events. In reading these events, they seem crazy, but I wonder if you
were working at my kids’ school and witnessed these happenings if
they would have raised any red flags? Would you even notice? By
the way, I am completely aware that there are plenty of other acts
of sextyping or sexualization that occurred, that I had likely missed,
because I too have been socialized to see the binary as normal. It is
difficult to break.
Given that my kids have knocked up against these so-called,
“educational events,” and I have had to struggle with understanding
them, I wondered how teachers have allowed these things to happen.
Did they not know who my kids were? I imagine that though you
have not met my kids, I bet that with the limited information I shared
about them here, if I were to swing by your house, drop them off,
and say, “So…I’ll be back in a few hours,” that once you got over
some initial shock, you would find some fun stuff to do. And I bet
this stuff would be designed around their interests—that you would
take into consideration of who they are. Why was the school more
concerned about sextyping (my) kids than designing instruction and
an educational environment that honored their personalities? This got
me thinking…
Maybe these teachers were just too busy to get to know their
students. But I wonder, is this excusable?
Maybe when these teachers were kids, they were so successfully
sextyped, groomed, and socialized so that now they only understand
the world as one that is perfectly gendered. But I wonder, as adults
were they never exposed to thinking differently about gender (at least
in their teacher preparation programs!)?
Maybe it is simply more efficient for these teachers to sextype. But
do these teachers not see themselves as individuals, as complex human
beings? That is, can they connect with the fact that even if they largely
30
perform or identify feminine or masculine, that they also do not fit
with others who identify similarly? And this could be true for their
students too—that they should not make assumptions about them?
Maybe they would claim that the school inhibits them from
challenging sextyping. Often teachers blame the school system, or
claim that parents might “get upset,” from enacting “progressive”
practices. But I wonder, have they tried and been told “no?” And must
they radically “challenge” stereotypes? Could they just not reinforce
them? Yes, I understand that this is still a method of challenging, but
maybe it is more discreet. And so what if it makes parents upset? Is
it their job to be non-discriminatory? Equitable? Fair? To realize the
fullest potentials of their students? To offer an intellectual space that
challenges the status quo? To not be OK with social reproduction—to
want more for their students? To want a better world?
I do not think I am being too unreasonable here. I think those who
work in schools need to take upon themselves the moral and ethical
responsibility to wonder about what is required of them so that students
become self-actualizing and self-determining individuals. This will
not happen if teachers and their schools institutionalize gender.
NOTES
Scott Richardson, “Blurred Lines of a Different Kind: Sex, Media and Kids,” in
Gender & Pop Culture: A Text-Reader, eds. Adrienne Trier-Bieniek and Patricia
Leavy. (Boston, MA: Sense Publishers, 2014).
2
bell hooks, Ain’t I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism (Boston, MA: South
End Press, 1981).
3
Judith Butler provides the most important conceptualization of gender as
performance. See: Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion
of Identity (New York, NY: Routledge, 2006).
4
I also do this work because I am a feminist. David Tyack & Elisabeth Hansot said
that the work of feminist researchers (particularly since the 1970s) hope to make
schools a more equitable place for all children by studying three overlapping
themes, “(1) patriarchy, which encompassed the whole of society as the unit of
analysis and described universal male domination; (2) sex-role stereotyping,
which stressed the individual’s internalization of cultural gender roles; and (3)
institutional sexism, which addressed the inequalities built into institutional
structures and policies.” See: David Tyack and Elizabeth Hansot, Learning
1
31
Chapter 1
Together: A History of Coeducation in American Public Schools (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 1990), 250–251.
5
For example: Hanna Rosin, The End of Men and the Rise of Women (New York,
NY: Riverhead); Christina Hoff Summers, The War Against Boys: How Misguided
Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster).
6
See: National Center for Education Statistics, “Degrees Conferred by Sex
and Race,” Institute of Education Sciences, accessed December 10, 2014,
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=72; National Center for Education
Statistics, “Public High School Four-Year On-Time Graduation Rates and Event
Dropout Rates: School Years 2010–11 and 2011–12,” Institute of Education
Sciences, accessed December 10, 2014, http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.
asp?pubid=2014391; U.S. Census Bureau, “Degrees Earned by Level and Sex:
1960 to 2009,” Statistical Abstract of the United States, accessed December
10m, 2014, https://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0299.
pdf; Richard J. Murnane and Stephen L. Hoffman, “Graduations on the Rise,”
Education Next (Fall, 2013); 59–65.
7
National Committee on Pay Equity, “Wage Gap Narrows Slightly but Statistically
Unchanged,” National Committee on Pay Equity, accessed December 14, 2014,
http://www.pay-equity.org/
8
C. J. Pascoe, Dude You’re A Fag, 7.
9
R. W. Connell, Masculinities (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
1995), 68.
10
Idid., 71.
11
Judith Halberstamm, Female Masculinity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
1998), 1.
12
Barrie Thorne, Gender Play: Girls and Boys in Schools (New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 1993). See also: Cecilia L. Ridgeway, “Framed Before
We Know It: How Gender Shapes Social Relations,” Gender & Society, 23
(2009): 145–150.
13
Audrey Bigler, “On Language: You Guys,” in Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural
Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine, eds. Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler
(New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006).
14
See: Lina Esco, Hunter Richards and Sarabeth Stroller, Free the Nipple, Film,
Lina Esco (Paris, France: Bethsabee Mucho, 2014).
15
Andrew Niccol, The Truman Show, Film, Peter Weir (Universal City, CA:
Universal Studios, 1998).
16
Cynthia Lowen and Lee Hirsch, Bully, Film, Lee Hirsch (New York, NY: The
Bully Project, 2012).
17
See: Pauline Sears and David Feldman, “Teacher Interactions with Boys
and with Girls,” ed. Judith Stacey, And Jill Came Tumbling After: Sexism in
American Education (New York, NY: Dell, 1974); Paul Musen, “Early Sex-Role
Development,” ed. David A. Goslin, Handbook on Socialization Theory and
Research (Chicago, IL: Rand McNally and Co., 1965).
32
Carol K. Sigelman and Elizabeth A. Rider, Life-Span: Human Development
(Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2011).
19
Thorne, Gender Play.
20
Richardson, “Blurred Lines of a Different Kind.”
21
Ruby Bridges, “Untitled” (paper presented at the MLK Day Celebration Keynote
Address, Millersville, Pennsylvania, February 6, 2013).
22
Scott Richardson, eleMENtary School: (Hyper)Masculinity in a Feminized
Context (Boston, MA: Sense Publishers, 2012); bell hooks, The Will to Change:
Men, Masculinity, and Love (New York, NY: Harper, 2004).
23
Madeline Grumet, Bitter Milk: Women and Teaching (Amherst, MA: University
of Massachusetts, 1988), 46.
24
This was a tipping point for me. I was outraged, particularly after all of the other
sexist, misogynist, gendered practices I kept quiet about. I had a meeting with the
principal and addressed it by literally saying, “This mardi gras thing…what the
fuck?!” She agreed it was ridiculous, but that she had a difficult time stopping
the teacher who coordinates it every year. I pleaded for her to do her job as a
supervisor.
18
33
CHAPTER 2
GETTING INTO IT
My interest in the institutionalization of gender grew primarily out
of concerns I have about the broad socialization process (in and out
of schools), my undergraduates performances of stereotypical gender
roles, and the impact schools have had and will have on my children. 1
But I have also noticed gender at play while teaching public school,
supervising student teachers, and consulting several school districts.
All of these experiences influenced me, in one way or another, to
formally conduct research so that I can explore the process of how
gender is institutionalized, including the problems of sextyping. I
hoped, along the way that I might gain some insight about how to
deinstitutionalize schools, or at least, make kids more resilient to
schools’ efforts of institutionalization.
Constructs and perceptions of gender are deeply impacted by a
wealth of cultural factors, and I desired to study several urban and
suburban school districts. However, I was unable to do this kind of
comparative work. Urban school districts—short staffed, underfunded,
and burdened by other concerns (namely, state testing)—were unable
to invest energies in hosting a researcher like me.2 One superintendent
candidly told me, “If you’re not here to help us raise proficiency rates
on our tests, or decipher the state’s new teacher evaluation system, we
are uninterested. I mean, we are totally interested in gender equality,
but you know what I mean…we just can’t put that before pressing
demands.” Of course, I could (and wanted to) protest, “Gender equity
isn’t a pressing demand?!” However, I knew I would not change his
mind. My work simply was not important enough to them.
Superintendents in three suburban school districts, however, with
very little hesitation, agreed to have their schools participate in the
study.3 At the onset, I met with each of them and explained that
I wanted to observe schools as they are and that if I told teachers,
principals, and others that I was studying gender, they would likely
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Chapter 2
change their behaviors. Therefore, we agreed it was appropriate for me
to employ deception; only superintendents and my university knew
the real focus of my work. I recruited teacher participants by sending
emails stating that I wanted to study, “narratives of success…how
teachers and students embodied achievement.”4 This reaped dozens
of positive responses and soon I had forty-five different classrooms
ready to be observed.
Each school district resided in different counties, and closely
resembled my kids’ school district. They were suburban districts that
tilted rural. All three school districts, however, were experiencing a
slight shift in demographics. Just a few years before, at least 95% of
all students were White, and the great majority of them came from
middle and upper class families. The school districts now ranged
between 5,200 and 7,700 students with a combined average of 88%
of whom were “White,” 4% “African American,” 4% “Latino,” 2%
“Asian,” and 2% “Other.” Approximately 32% of all students received
free/reduced lunch. There are claims that “suburban schools are a
major attraction to minority populations because of their reputation
of providing significantly better educational opportunities than their
urban counterparts.”5 There are also claims that this increase in
diversity (ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic) brings new “challenges”
to suburbs and their schools.6 These so-called “challenges” are
predominantly perceived because the influx of “new” cultures—their
simple existence—threaten the dominant (White middle and upper
class) culture. All three school districts and their communities, in my
observation, worked tirelessly to uphold “whiteness.” It was evidenced
in the manner real estate was marketed and residents recruited friends
to become their neighbors. The goal of many of these residents,
particularly parents, was to maintain:
sufficient social distance and geographical isolation to separate
themselves from people of other classes, races, or ethnic groupings
and to be in the proximity of others from their own social group.
This separation becomes part of the social reproduction of the
upper class; whether parents explicitly use such terms or not, elite
children quickly learn that some people are ‘our kind of people’
and all others are not.7
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Getting Into It
Teachers dismissed the idea of culturally relevant pedagogy—to
develop students academically, a willingness to nurture and support
cultural competence, and the development of sociopolitical or critical
consciousness,”8—as “not the job of the school,” “absurd,” and “going
too far.” A social studies teacher, claimed:
This community’s values have been here for a long time. I’m not
‘against’ being more culturally sensitive, but the dominant culture
isn’t urban.9 I think, then, it is just difficult to say we have to do
things different to accommodate just a few. Sometimes you get
parents in here thinking it should be the same [as the urban school
they moved from], but they made a decision to come here. I think
it’s on them to adapt.
While it is a limitation that rural and urban school districts were not
included in this study, observing how gender was produced within
these mostly middle and upper class Euro-centric schools is deeply
important.10 If we desire gender equity, then, we must hope that
these suburban school districts—whose kids will likely grow up to
own, control, and govern much of America—are actively studied,
challenged, and ultimately changed.
METHODS
I was lucky to have three field research assistants—Sabrina, Khoan,
and Samantha. Before doing any observations and interviews, we held
meetings to design codes and observation tools, invent methods that
would allow us to share data, and conduct literature reviews. Once
we felt organized we began our work in schools. We spent September
through November in all forty-five classrooms. It was a whirlwind. Each
school was very hospitable. Then, out of the forty-five we selected nine
classrooms that represented “the middle” of what we were observing,
and followed them closely from November through June. These
nine classrooms—three in each level (elementary, middle, and high
school)—were chosen because we characterized them as “typical” of
what we saw and believed they revealed how schools institutionalized
gender for students on a consistent basis. This consistency, I believe,
grounded students in what was thought, and expected to be, “normal.”
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Chapter 2
Meaning, these contexts normalized the on-going institutionalization,
and traditional performances, of heteronormativity and male/female
roles. The “extreme” classrooms—those atypical because they were
highly sexualized/gendered, “neutral,” or operated under pedagogical
dispositions that honored gender equity and social justice—provided
a different, but equally valuable insight about how gender is at work
within schools. Data in these extreme classrooms were collected
quickly, and so we did not feel as though our energies needed to be
employed in these settings for an entire year.
We chose our nine “middle,” or “focus,” classrooms—all from the
same school district (Monroe Valley S.D.)—for three primary reasons:
1) theoretically, a lengthy and concentrated look into these classrooms
would provide a deeper understanding of how gender becomes culture;
2) practically, we could organize our data to more easily and fairly
represent “daily life,” and; 3) logistically, our resources would not be
spread too thin. Each classroom was observed approximately fifteen
times after our initial visits. In each observation, lasting between one
and three hours, we attempted to see a variety of procedures. Lengthy
observations were crucial because I wanted to know what gendered
messages manifested for children in elementary school within, and
while transitioning between, different subjects, lunch, recess, specials,
special activities, and so on. I understood that formal instructional time
was just one kind of opportunity for gender to be institutionalized.
Sitting in middle and high school classrooms for several hours at
a time, allowed us to see how teachers’ approaches to different
“leveled” subject matter, content, and children varied. Though we
drew generalities, and took note of the “extremes,” from our forty-five
initial classrooms, our nine focus classrooms gave us the opportunity
to develop narrative case studies:
Perhaps the simplest rule for method in qualitative casework
is this: Place your best intellect into the thick of what is going
on. The brain work obstensibly is observational, but, more
basically, it is reflective…Qualitative case study [as is narrative
and ethnographic work] is characterized by researchers spending
extended time, on site, personally in contact with activities and
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Getting Into It
operations of the case, reflecting, revising meanings of what is
going on.11
Framed within evolving understandings of experiences, our goal was
to enter into productive spaces of narration by focusing “the social,
cultural, and institutional narratives within individuals’ experiences.”12
During each observation we used an electronic document that we
created, prompting us to organize our notes within particular themes:
Environment; Instructional Decisions; Informal Language; Language
Between Adults; Body Language; Preferences; Literature (SelfPublished); Literature/Materials (Curricular Programs); Complicity/
Inaction; Other. At the end of each observation, the electronic document
was immediately uploaded to our shared Gmail account so that the
entire research team could access all notes. It was particularly helpful
when two separate researchers, during the same observation, filled out
this form independently. Beyond using this standard document, we
also recorded notes in other ways that felt right to us. I often kept
what I called “time studies.” I used my phone as a stopwatch to record
the “attention” (type/quantity/quality) given by teachers and to whom.
Sabrina, a logical and straightforward thinker, often wrote the obvious.
She was dutiful in scripting important conversations and keeping track
of student interactions. Sabrina was particularly useful when baseline/
descriptive data needed to be collected—she was the most reliable
out of the four of us to make observations on her own. Khoan, who
is quite philosophical, often spent most of her energy developing
theories about what she saw. She wrote several explanations for each
observation made, which challenged us to see differently and consider
alternative explanations. Samantha had the most unique approach,
which concerned me at first. She alternated between large periods
of time quietly, intently, and deeply “looking,” and making visual
representations—sketching and diagramming—her observations and
interpretations. It turned out that these representations were extremely
helpful, especially during the post-coding writing process. During data
analysis, we employed a “negotiated coding approach” allowing us to
discuss our “codes to bring most coded messages into alignment.”13
This method of negotiated agreement helped move us beyond inter-
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Chapter 2
coder reliability and toward a “state of intersubjectivity, where raters
discuss, present, and debate interpretations to determine whether
agreement can be reached.”14 We constantly thought through possible
and alternative explanations15 and looked for emergent themes16 in a
manner that organized our ideas.
During the final month of school, I conducted interviews with the
teachers of the nine focus classrooms, and several others—including
those in other school districts—who I felt might understand how
schools institutionalize gender. These additional interviewees held
interesting positions and additional responsibilities in their schools—
as coaches advisors, department heads, extracurricular programmers,
and so on—throughout their lengthy careers. I was on edge about the
interviews because the teachers did not know that I spent the year
specifically thinking about gender in their classrooms. Toward the end
of each interview, after I “interrogated” their answers to my questions
and brought up observations I made of their teaching in the hope to
get more answers about how they performed, cultivated, and imposed
gender. I revealed what I was researching. Approximately half of the
teachers reported that they held no grudge for being deceived. Many
wanted me to share my findings and to contact them if I needed more
help. The other half felt trapped and worried that my description of them
would paint them as sexist, or favoring boys or girls. I do not think this
was because they were concerned others might read this work, figure
out who they were, and think poorly of them, but it just hurt them to
think that they might have created inequitable environments. They all
cared deeply about their students. Guilty feeling teachers would shift
uneasily in their chairs, and say things that exposed deep concerns
they probably have not shared often, “You don’t think I care for the
girls more, do you?” or “I don’t know, I do have a different attitude
with the boys, but it isn’t because I want them to do better…what do
you think?”
One group of teachers felt betrayed more than the others. Teachers
at Williams Elementary School, who were all close friends, politely
declined to answer any more questions post-interview and refused
to participate in a proposed focus group that would read a draft of
the manuscript and provide me with additional feedback. Ten months
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Getting Into It
after the interviews were concluded, the superintendent reported that
teachers at this building felt “extremely uncomfortable,” however, he
did not specify what this meant. Since none of the teachers withdrew
from the study and the principal did not contact me, I was unsure how
to think about this report. So, though unnecessary, out of good faith to
ease the concerns of the superintendent—and perhaps the elementary
school participants—I destroyed their data, and the rest of the data
collected in the school district, and promised to not include it in
future publications. This loss of data was semi-insignificant as this
school district did not house any of our “focus” classrooms. This data
merely supported the conclusions and descriptions we made regarding
Monroe Valley S.D.
It is important to reiterate that regardless of how teachers responded
to the news of my deception, none asked me to discard data about
them and their classrooms. They all felt that this work was important.
Though generous, I wanted to be cautious. I never like deceiving
people, and I hope to never write something that could bear some
sort of personal or professional consequence. After all, these teachers
desired to be helpful, and on all accounts they were well-intended and
good people who did what they thought was best for their students.
Yes, some did create inequitable environments and harmful narratives
about masculinity and femininity, but they were not consciously out to
damage or advance certain kids. Therefore, I utilized “light” composite
nonfiction when necessary, if I felt that I would “out” a particular
teacher and their classroom. This is not a methodological conflict for
many reasons, but primarily because, “my purpose is not to tell their
[teachers’] special stories, but to use aspects of their experience to
make some useful general points.”17 I wanted my work to represent
how the institutionalization of gender is commonly found in many
classrooms, schools, and districts.
Throughout the research, I employed the lens of a curriculum
theorist. Many perceive “curriculum” as an instructional program—a
reading series, math set, science kit, and so on. But understanding
curriculum in this narrow way limits the dynamic meaning of the term.
“Curriculum” is derived from the Latin, “currere,” which means the
“running of a course.” The curriculum is everything and anything that
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Chapter 2
impacts the course of students’ experiences. This includes programs
and units of study, but it also includes things like the way the day is
organized, the affect of the teacher, and the physical environment of
the school. Adults, to some degree, impact all experiences students
have in school.
Many studies by curriculum theorists seek to explore or expose one
faction or kind of curriculum (e.g., the hidden, null, written, rhetorical,
c/overt, operational, extra, formal, phantom, received, or intended).18 I
considered using some of these categories/ways of thinking as coding
systems, to organize this text, explain findings, and so on. However, I
did not find that it enhanced what I aimed to do: I wanted to narrate, to
be descriptive. I wanted to be freed from the overwhelming burden of
trying to explain how all observations/instances of institutionalization
fit within discrete, yet intersecting, curricular categories.
I found it helpful to continually wonder about students’ experiences,
and whether or not they were the result of mindful or mindless adult
decisions. I hypothesized that mindful experiences, those that were
deliberately planned, mostly occurred during direct instruction with
students. Whereas the less mindful, even mindless, experiences—but
experiences that transmitted knowledge and culture nonetheless—
happened mostly during informal times: transitions between classes,
walking in the hallway, at lunch, and so on. Schools shape students’
experiences during informal moments because they have made
decisions about how they would control the environment. Schools
choose how long recess is, the kind of play equipment available, and
what classes will socialize on the playground together. They choose
hallway policies, the physical design of the school, and rules and
consequences. School boards, administrators, and teachers have some
choice (and they are probably mindful about it at the time) about every
aspect of the curriculum. Though they were likely mindful when making
initial decisions, implementation often becomes “mindless.” There is
little intent to “teach” something to students, or transmit culture in a
particular way in-between the bells or during “non-instructional time.”
What is interesting, however, is that these informal moments become
deeply important for students. Students often report that they learned
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Getting Into It
the most in school while at the cafeteria table with their friends, in a
student club, or exchanging notes in the hallway.
I am interested in mindless and mindful decision making for a
simple reason. If school districts, teachers, programs, policies are
institutionalizing gender and they are doing so in a mindful manner,
then this research becomes an interesting study of a culture that desires
to replicate specific versions of masculinity and femininity for boys
and girls. If they are mindlessly institutionalizing gender then this
research becomes a way of wondering why, bringing consciousness
to practice, and beginning the process of figuring out what schools
actually do and desire.
MONROE VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT, U.S.A.
Community
Monroe Valley was a medium sized suburban school district. It
encompassed two small towns located just within the east and
northwest borders with many mini-mansions and developments
sprinkled in-between. Farms consumed large pieces of land in the
west and southwest, and a mid-sized city, Pierce, was approximately
ten miles from the eastern district borderline. Pierce was a typical
all-American midsized city. It was once known for industry and
tourism, and acted as an economic hub for much of the Northeastern
U.S. region. Then, things changed. It is now in an era of reinvention.
Micropubs, galleries, chic boutiques, and organic based restaurants
are claiming Pierce “hip.” White people presently living in Pierce are
either older residents who grew roots in the city many decades ago, or
young hipsters—the “urban farmer” type.
Families in the Monroe Valley S. D. territory rarely visited Pierce.
Horror stories of the “big city” were spun in the suburbs. Mostly
tales of crime. Vague stories like, “My friend’s aunt’s sister knew
someone who went to Pierce to buy a…and in the parking lot she
was accosted by these two black guys…” tempered any ambition to
go to the city. That is, unless it was “First Friday.” During the first
Friday of each month galleries swung open their doors offering wine
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Chapter 2
and cheese, bands played in restaurants and parks, and special events
were orchestrated for children. White people from the suburbs flocked
to the city. The very next day, things went back to normal.
Besides feeling adventurous and artsy every once in a while,
suburbanites did not need the city. They created markets of their very
own with restaurants, movie theaters, shopping malls, and the like,
making it unnecessary to travel far. If Monroe Valley families went
beyond district borders for leisure, it was on vacation to a different
state or nation.
Schools
The school district had six elementary schools, two middle schools,
and one high school.19 The high school was known for its International
Baccalaureate program,20 high achievement in athletics (basketball for
girls, wrestling for boys) and success rate for getting kids into college.
“A few students,” the high school assistant principal told me, “slip
through the cracks and just disappear after graduation. Most go to
college, trade school, or begin working.” Monroe Valley is considered
a “good district” though teachers, and particularly parents, often
lament that Jameson School District, an über wealthy district due
north, scores “the best in the county” on state performance exams.
The current superintendent of Monroe Valley, Kenneth Kreskil, was
an ex-principal who departed from Jameson after a bitter argument.
Teachers suspected that the hyper-standardization and unreasonable
“pushing” they experienced from Kreskil was because he desired to
topple Jameson. Competition like this, whether out of vengeance,
elitism, or something else completely was not uncommon between the
many suburban school districts in the county.
Teachers & Administrators
Monroe Valley School District teachers were an eclectic crew. Some
teachers sustained entire careers at Monroe Valley. Others jumped
around from school district to school district, sometimes all over the
world. And others were fresh out of college. Although they were diverse
in experiences, sad to say, they were not diverse in their pedagogical
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Getting Into It
approaches. The current era of standardization crippled Monroe Valley
teachers. No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Race to the Top, Common
Core, standards based language arts and math programs, and district
wide lesson templates all impacted the way teachers taught: the same.
By looking at their lesson plans, the physical environment of their
classroom, and their teaching strategies, there was no discernable way
to spot veterans from rookie teachers. There were very few moments
during the day when teachers found space to do something beyond
or different from the test. Some teachers, tried to provide some
“buffer”21—to destress students from the constant rat race of school—
by employing humor. At the end of the day, as students lined up to
go home, one elementary teacher sung silly songs she had written. A
high school English teacher, Jay Mascenik, always wrote an incredibly
corny joke of the day followed by a false agenda on the board. One
morning it read:
Person 1: Someone said you sound like an owl?
Person 2: Who?
Agenda (super important!):
1. Review: How to make a perfect milkshake.
2. Might there be a man on the moon? Do you like R.E.M.?
3. Seriously, do you like R.E.M.? I do. Ask your parents. They’re
awesome.
4. The history of the Earth from 2012–2013.
5. Dance party!!!
In the hallway, between classes, a middle school teacher, Beth, would
yell out random history facts to kids—particularly at kanoodling
couples pressed against lockers. She was good friends with the music
teacher who every now and again would bring an instrument into
the hallway, lay down a hat for “donations,” and play a tune. These
small bits of fun were often appreciated by both teachers and students.
It helped them to survive the boredom that the typical school day
brought. These moments told me that hidden in these teachers’ souls
were people who wanted to make learning fun and engaging.
From the very beginning of my time in Monroe Valley, I made a
general observation that holds true in most school districts I have
observed or worked in: the elementary school teachers were caring
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Chapter 2
individuals who desired to nurture young minds.22 These teachers were
mostly full of hope and believed that students, with the right counsel
and educational opportunities, could be someone. These teachers
were optimists. The middle school teachers, on the other hand, were
mostly pessimists. There were several teachers who loved working
with middle school aged children, but there were equally as many
who desired to “play in the big leagues”—high school. High school
teachers, not all, but certainly a good many, were cockier because they
were the “gatekeepers”—they would help “make” or “break” students
who would go off to college, or find a path that is suited for their
talents and abilities. High school teachers thought it was odd when
I told them that middle school teachers pined for their jobs, unless
they were once teachers in a middle school. Most high school teachers
jockeyed for the “best” classes—the AP and honors sections. Such
assignments were a badge of honor demonstrating that they were,
among their colleagues, the most knowledgeable in their field.
Mostly, elementary school teachers were interested in children,
middle school teachers in procedures and control, and high school
teachers in subject matter.
Administrators were bean counters and politicians, but they
wanted desperately to be well liked and held in high-esteem. They
were continuously trying to find ways they could talk about their
accomplishments. In faculty meetings, they would brag about people
they met at conferences, compliments received by the superintendent,
and notices in the local newspaper. Most of their backgrounds consisted
of teaching a few brief years and attending a diploma mill, receiving
an Ed.D. (applied doctorate in educational leadership). For the most
part, these administrators knew very little about instruction. Teachers
deeply distrusted them. Administrative observations of teachers were
almost instantaneously disregarded. “I’d like to see what they can do
in the classroom…and then I’ll take their comments seriously,” and,
“They only give a shit about student performance on test scores…they
want their bonuses. So, I know that anything they have to say to me
doesn’t have anything to do with student learning,” teachers would say.
It was true, administrators were deeply concerned over their schools’
test scores, and they received bonuses for meeting certain criteria.
Scores were compared between schools. All wanted to be on the top.
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Getting Into It
Public Relations
Monroe Valley was a conscientious disseminator of information. They
took great pride in keeping parents and the community “informed.”
They were extremely meaningful about what was conveyed, and how
it broke to the public. One parent who recognized this deliberateness
called it “propaganda.” Jon Davenport, the principal at Randolph
Middle School and Clark Kent lookalike, however publicly called it an
“open platform of communication” which included personally taking
to Twitter. Davenport tweeted throughout the day about academic or
athletic achievements, early dismissals, faculty features, and special
events. These tweets were always boastful and they read like a
proactive PR campaign. Other on-line sources included principals’
messages, teacher blogs, and school webpages.
In a closed door meeting, a top central administrator admitted that
the school district makes an effort—to a fault, he believes—to never
communicate the needs and challenges of the school district. He said:
It is completely unreasonable that any school district wouldn’t have
their share of problems. I think it might worry parents who live in
reality. Some of our students are continually getting suspended,
are caught up in groups of kids that are making poor decisions, are
failing in school, and we only communicate, ‘Everything here at
Monroe Valley is great!’ Not only does it come off disingenuous,
but it could also come off like, ‘Monroe Valley is great…it is
just your kid that is the fuck-up!’…It’s certainly important to
emphasize achievements, but I don’t think much progress is made
if we whitewash everything. It’s important to reach out and ask
for help, to include others that might have answers. I mean, I’m
kind of astonished they let you in here to do this work…you know
how many professors we turn away who want to do research or
help us in some capacity? Tons.
School districts like Monroe Valley are known for espousing certain
educational goals—though, these might be propaganda too. But to
a certain degree, I suppose we should take these seriously, as the
“official,” “espoused,” “premeditated,” or “formal” curriculum—but
as far as I am concerned, I cannot be sure if communication of this type
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is “mindful.” It may be mindful on one hand because the messengers
tried to put forward certain kinds of impressions, and have been to a
degree “premeditated,” however, I am skeptical that these messages
really align with what happens, or what schools actually do. Take for
example:
We ensure a physically safe and academically rigorous
environment for all students at #MVSD #JRRMS #Proud – Jon
Davenport Tweet
I doubt all students feel safe, particularly those who find themselves
in the “counter culture” or “minority”—kids who identify queer,23 are
not “white,” and so on. I also doubt all students feel academically
challenged. Surely there are students who go unchallenged most days,
who sit in their classes bored to tears, who skip school altogether
because they find it useless.
The “Principal’s Message” or “Principal’s Welcome” seems to be a
fundamental component of school websites. Arguably, the principal’s
message is part of the unofficial curriculum since it is not a legally
binding document or a formalized program of instruction. But that
it is formalized in writing and issued to the public, I find it to be a
decree of sorts, announcing, “this is our school.” Principals, and other
administrators, have a significant impact on the cultural climate of
schools and one would think that their words would carry great weight.
But again, in this age of standardization where No Child Left Behind
and Common Core reign supreme, and the act of “public” institutions
bowing to the needs of certain powerful political and cultural regimes
(such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) is commonplace, I
doubt “collaboration, critical thinking, and effective communicating,”
or “opportunities to explore, discover, and create” is happening to any
consistent degree in most of our nation’s schools. Additionally, I am
skeptical that teachers can dedicate much energy to students and their
needs (as claimed in the principal’s message) after they work to align
instruction to standards (with every lesson, every day), are constantly
learning new canned standardized curricula designed, live in fear of
administrative demands, and are continually testing the hell out of
their students.
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Getting Into It
The staff at Fisk Elementary focuses on developing 21st century
learners who are capable of such skills as collaboration, critical
thinking, and effective communicating. This is accomplished by
providing students the opportunities to explore, discover, and
create. Along with a strong emphasis in the basic skill areas of
language arts, math, science, and social studies, students are
provided experiences in art, library, music and physical education.
I look forward to meeting all of you as we work together to provide
each child a safe, caring, and joyful place to grow and learn.
(Josie Fisk Elementary website, Jan. 2013)
Public messages not only attempt to inform the public, or try to project
a certain vision about goals of the school district, but it provides
some insight (mindful or not) about how the district may recognize,
honor, or understand diversity. Meaning, we get a peek at the culture
of the district. Most written messages are “void” of gender—which
might be problematic…like being “color blind”—but, visual images,
particularly those that picture people, are not. Monroe Valley chose
to have, surprisingly very few, images on the district webpage. On
the home page, there were seventy-eight possible links a visitor could
choose. Seventy-five of these links (e.g., “Transportation,” “Calendar,”
“Alumni,” “Library,” “About MV,” and “New Hires”) connected
visitors with pages that did not have any visual images—only text.
The three links included pictures of people; “Athletics,” “Special
Education,” and “Career & Technical Services.” “Athletics” featured
one large picture of recent grads who “signed” to play for universities.
These student athletes wore t-shirts, hats, and jackets signifying their
new school. The athletes were separated by gender. Males constituted
two rows, one standing broad chested, and the other kneeling. Females
sat on the floor, legs crossed.
NOTES
Researchers, in my view, cannot fully separate “self” from “work.” Those who try
to do so—usually so that they can claim “generalizability”—I find are extremely
disingenuous. Lived experiences, and socialization as an academic, has a deep
impact on how researchers see and represent data. The old saying “research is
‘me-search,’” holds true. So, I do not avoid my biases and lenses, but rather
1
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Chapter 2
spend a lot of time trying to understand how I “know.” “My responsibility as an
ethnographer was not to forget my own story, but to know it well and to refer to it
constantly to make sure that it was not blinding me to what I saw or focusing my
attention on only some of what I saw.” See: Penelope Eckert, Jocks & Burnouts:
Social Categories and Identity in the High School (New York, NY: Teachers
College Press, 1989), 27.
2
I have no empirical research to back up my theory, but I suspect that increased
standardization has thwarted school districts’ willingness to be open to a diverse
range of research opportunities.
3
All school districts, schools, personnel, and students have been assigned
pseudonyms. In some cases, I employ composite non-fiction, altering and
blending details so that I can accurately capture emergent themes in the work
and to further disguise the identities of those involved. Additionally, readers are
often anxious about the generalizability or representational nature of narrative/
ethnographic works like this. I think it is best addressed the way that Tobin, Hsueh,
and Karasawa did in their groundbreaking work Preschool in Three Cultures
Revisited: I “make no claim about the representativeness or typicality” of the
three suburban school districts used in this study, “other than to say they are not
atypical” (p. 8). See: Joseph Tobin, Yeh Hsueh and Mayumi Karasawa, Preschool
in Three Cultures Revisited: China, Japan, and the United States (Chicago, IL:
The University of Chicago Press, 2009).
4
This was a vaguely espoused research plan, but most teachers were simply happy
to help and did not inquire much about my work. In fact, many teachers took
to emailing me, even texting at times, to simply share stories for one reason or
another.
5
Shelley B. Wepner, JoAnne G. Ferrara, Kristin N. Rainville, Diane W. Gomez,
Diane E. Lang and Laura A. Bigouette, Changing Suburbs, Changing Students:
Helping School Leaders Face the Challenges (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin,
2012).
6
Ibid.
7
Diana Kendall, “Class: Still Alive and Reproducing in the United States” in
Privilege: A Reader eds. Michael Kimmel and Abby Ferber. (Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 2010), 148-149.
8
Gloria Ladson-Billings, “Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy,”
American Educational Research Journal 32, no. 3. (Fall, 1995): 483.
9
Unfortunately, this teacher’s use of “urban” meant “Latino,” “African American,”
and “other” ethnicities/races.
10
bell hooks, Ain’t I a woman?
11
Robert E. Stake, “Case Studies,” eds. Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln,
The Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd Ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage,
2000), 445.
50
Getting Into It
D. Jean Clandinin and Jerry Rosiek, “Mapping a Landscape of Narrative Inquiry,”
ed. D. Jean Clandinin, Handbook of Narrative Inquiry: Mapping a Methodology
(Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2007), 42–43.
13
Elizabeth Soslau, “Opportunities to Develop Adaptive Expertise During
Supervisory Conferences,” Teaching and Teacher Education, 28, no. 5 (July
2012): 773.
14
Martin D. Lampert and Susan M. Ervin-Tripp, “Structured Coding for the Study
of Language and Social Interaction,” eds. Jane Edwards and Martin D. Lampert,
Talking Data: Transcription and Coding in Discourse Research (Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1993).
15
Though I went in to this research looking for how schools institutionalized gender,
I had to be open to the idea that maybe I was wrong.
16
This method of coding and process of seeking emergent themes is consistent with
the field of narrative inquiry. See: D. Jean Clandinin and F. Michael Connelly,
Narrative Inquiry Experience and Story in Qualitative Research (San Francisco,
CA: Josey-Bass, 2000).
17
Theodore R. Sizer, Horace’s Compromise, 8.
18
See: William F. Pinar, What is Curriculum Theory? 2nd Ed. (New York, NY:
Routledge, 2011); William F. Pinar, William M. Reynolds, Patrick Slattery, and
Peter M. Taubman, Understanding Curriculum (New York, NY: Peter Lang,
2004).
19
Students who attended Monroe Valley S. D. were no different than the thousands
of students I have met and taught over my career. They were unique individuals
with varied interests and experiences. That said, they predominantly shared
white middle-class values. Young children, prior to attending kindergarten, were
socialized by their families, communities, media, and environment at large to
perform stereotypical masculinity and femininity.
20
For information about the International Baccalaureate Program see: “The
International Baccalaureate,” accessed November 25, 2014, http://www.ibo.org/
21
Alfie Kohn, “Fighting the Test: A Practical Guide to Rescuing Our Schools,” Phi
Delta Kappan 82, no. 5. (January, 2001): 349.
22
There were only three male teachers in the elementary school. The two youngest
(with 13 years of experience combined) reported that they were being “groomed”
for administrative positions, even though they had little interest in this line of work.
The third described himself as a “salty old dog” and told me that “administrators,
parents, and district politics just gets in the way. I’m not shy about telling them to
go to hell...but, I’m one of the few teachers left with a moral compass and guts.”
23
Most students in Monroe Valley S.D., like many of their generation, reclaimed
and preferred the term “queer.” Many find it less oppressive and appreciates
that queer as “an identity category…has no interest in consolidating or even
stabilizing itself and that ‘queer’ declines to reduce gender to sexuality.” See:
12
51
Chapter 2
Annamarie Jagose, Queer Theory: An Introduction (New York, NY: New York
University Press, 1996), 132; William F. Pinar, Educational Experience as Lived:
Knowledge, History, Alterity (New York, NY: Routledge, 2015), 170.
52

Gender Lessons - Sense Publishers

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